To Call and Help Those In Japan

Anyone who has turned on the television in the last couple of days knows immediately about the sufferings of those in earthquake-ravaged Japan. Since the initial 9.0 quake that struck Northern Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011, news has been slow to get out about the overall extent of this tragedy. Reports have been varied to the amount of human life loss (estimated in the thousands) to the millins of people who are still without food, water, power, and the basic necessities of life. Add to this crisis the current state of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, many have questions and concerns about loved ones who are still in this devastated country. But thanks to several big phone and cable countries, finding out the news firsthand will not be that costly.

In fact, most calls to Japan in the month of March will be free.

During the rest of March, and to April 10 for Verizon and Sprint, major phone companies are allowing calls and text messages into Japan for its customers free of charge. For those customers who receive a monthly statement from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless, you will be able to send text messages and make calls from your mobile device to Japan for free. For those with a landline, AT&T is offering one hour of free service to call Japan until March 31 while those who have landlines through Time Warner Cable will get these calls free until April 15. Customers of VIP Communications will not be charged for the first ten minutes of any calls made to Japan until March 18.

If you use Vonage for broadband calls, those calls will also be free until March 18.

While these free calls do not guarantee you will reach loved ones in Japan, it is a nice gesture to show how deeply we as a planet are connected when disaster strikes.

TV Japan, a 24-hour television channel broadcast in the Japanese language for those in the United States and Canada, will be offered for free by several major cable networks. While TV Japan’s regular program schedule offers movies, dramas, sports, and children’s program, since the earthquake in Japan it has been focused on providing the latest news to come out of this region. For many Japanese citizens, the channel is the lifeblood of those trying to find out any news from their homeland. Networks such as AT&T’s U-verse, Verizon’s FIOS TV, Cablevision, and Comcast are offering this channel free for a limited time for those markets that do already carry the channel.

As was previously seen from the disasters in Pakistan and Haiti, many mobile phone users can donate money to various relief efforts through standard text messaging. The most trusted, and most needed, organization when it comes to relief is the American Red Cross and they have announced via Twitter that anyone can donate ten dollars by texting the words “REDCROSS” to 90999.

While many organizations are trying to raise money to help those in Japan, people should be aware of scams and fraudulent sites as Google announced that immediately after the quake the amount of sites for the keywords “charity help” increased dramatically on their search engine.

If you want to help, please just give to the Red Cross as they are always on the frontlines of any tragedy.