For Japan with Love

We are participating in the Blogger’s Day of Silence, part of the For Japan with Love Disaster Relief, to help the victims of the latest disasters that struck Japan.

Please take a moment to visit Shelter Box and join us in making a donation, no matter how small the amount. All proceeds to Shelterbox will be used to provide emergency shelter. Each large green ShelterBox is tailored to a disaster but typically contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage and purification equipment, cooking utensils, a stove, a basic tool kit, a children’s activity pack and other vital items.

Charity’s International Director, Lasse Petersen (AU), says ShelterBox will be doing everything they can to help.

“As you head further north along the coast literally every single home has been destroyed,’ he said. ‘At this moment the focus of the relief effort is still on search and rescue. The authorities are still in the stage of establishing what they need, where they need it and where the best places to house large numbers of displaced people are. They’re gearing up for the anticipated need which will become apparent when the focus shifts from search and rescue.”

“It’s extremely cold here and we are hearing reports of people having to sleep in their cars while evacuation centres remain full and overcrowded. We’re committed to doing everything we can to help Japan’s people at this extremely testing time.”

ShelterBox were on the ground in Japan within less than 24 hours after the earthquake struck. The hugely-experience ShelterBox Response Team (SRT), consisting of Mark Pearson (UK), Lasse Petersen (AU), John Diksa (FR) and David Eby (US), are now working with authorities to assess the areas of most need.

To-date, Japanese police said they have so far confirmed 6,539 deaths in the earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan last week. The evacuees are wide-spread in more than 2,000 shelters in 15 quake-hit prefectures. In the northeastern region, which includes the 3 hardest-hit prefectures, 265,000 people are taking refuge at 1,900 shelters. Among them, Miyagi Prefecture is worst hit and 166,000 people are taking refuge in 1,000 shelters. That is about 60 % of the total evacuee number. Fukushima Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture each has around 47,000 to 48,000 evacuees. The quake did not spare the Kanto region, Tokyo and its surrounding areas. More than 20,000 people are taking shelter at around 300 places.

Source: NHK News, CNN