Japanese Red Cross collects 174 bil. yen in quake relief donations

TOKYO, May 11 Kyodo -
The Japanese Red Cross Society said Wednesday it has received about 174 billion yen in donations for people affected by the March 11 quake and tsunami, the largest ever it has collected, and that 65 billion yen of the amount has been distributed to the governments of afflicted prefectures.
The society also said aside from the amount it has collected, about 16.8 billion yen ($208 million) has been offered by its partner societies from around the world and that the overseas assistance will be used to rebuild medical infrastructure in the disaster-hit areas and to give electrical appliances to victims living in temporary housing.
Tadateru Konoe, president of the Japanese Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo that $100 million will be spent to build a temporary hospital and on emergency medical care in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.
''One of the biggest challenges for us now is to work on the recovery of regular health services,'' Konoe said. ''State plans to rebuild are in place, but they will take years to implement and in the meantime the Japanese Red Cross will do all it can to bridge significant gaps.''
In the Ishinomaki area, only 40 of about 70 medical institutions it had before the disasters are still working. The prefabricated temporary hospital to be built by the Japanese Red Cross will operate until a new municipal hospital will be constructed in an estimated three years, he added.
The Red Cross will also offer appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines and rice cookers to people moving into an eventual 72,000 temporary homes. The sets of household items are expected to benefit up to 288,000 people at an estimated cost of $203 million.
As for domestically collected donations, Konoe said both speed and fairness should be considered in distributing the money.
The speed of donation delivery is slower compared with the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that hit Kobe and other western Japan cities, two weeks after which the money began to be sent to victims.
But Konoe said it cannot be helped as functions of local municipal governments were destroyed and many people remain missing this time, leaving it difficult to identify recipients.
The president said the Japanese Red Cross will seriously consider how best to distribute donations through the prefectural governments in the future, as there are ideas to provide funds for individuals, orphans and private companies to help their reconstruction efforts.
Overhead costs have not been withdrawn from donations collected by the Japanese Red Cross and it has spent its own funding provided by supporters before the calamities to offer emergency relief supplies such as blankets and to dispatch medical teams to the affected areas, Konoe said.