American Red Cross

QUESTION: What is the American Red Cross doing to assist the Japanese community?

ANSWER: The American Red Cross is currently in discussions with the Japanese Red Cross to assess their needs and see how we can help. The Japanese Red Cross has extraordinary disaster response capabilities. They have been operating since 1887, and they run multiple hospitals and blood collection services across the country.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is assisting Japan with restoring family links.

The American Red Cross has a warehouse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, fully stocked with pre-positioned relief supplies for 5,000 families, and it has disaster specialists on standby. These supplies can be used for people in U.S. territories or other Pacific nations.

The Japanese Red Cross continues to assess needs and has deployed 62 national disaster response medical teams with more than 400 staff to affected areas. The Japanese Red Cross has not requested international assistance at this time; however, the American Red Cross is in direct contact about their ongoing needs.

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QUESTION: I’m concerned about my loved ones. What can I do?

ANSWER:

NON-MILITARY, U.S. CITIZENS: The best way to contact or locate U.S. citizens living or traveling in Japan is to contact the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services, at 1-888-407-4747 or (202) 647-5225 (to call the 888 number from a DSN, dial 809-463-3376 first). The American Red Cross Safe and Well website has been updated to include the disaster dropdown “Japanese Earthquake.” People in the area can register themselves on the site as being safe and well and families in the States can check to see if their loved ones are registered on the site: http://www.redcross.org/safeandwell

MILITARY: The military has reported that all their personnel are accounted for, and all Red Cross staff on military bases are also fine. As is the normal practice for a disaster, Red Cross station managers are currently in the military Emergency Operations Centers for their respective installations and assisting as needed.  The American Red Cross Safe and Well website has been updated to include the disaster dropdown “Japanese Earthquake.” Military members can register themselves on the site as being safe and well and families of Military members stationed overseas can check to see if their loved ones are registered on the site: www.redcross.org/safeandwell

JAPANESE OR OTHER NATIONALITIES: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), working closely with the Japanese Red Cross, has launched a special Family Links website to help people seeking to re-establish contact with family members and friends. People in Japan and abroad can register on the website to inform their family and friends that they are safe and provide their current contact details, while those looking for people can check the list for information. They can also register the names of family members and friends, encouraging them to get in touch. The website is at http://www.icrc.org/familylinks. Even though communication networks are overloaded right now, the situation may change and access to mobile networks and the internet may improve.

Other Family Linking Resources: The Google Person Finder site is available: http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en

If you have the mobile phone number of your family member in the affected areas, you may utilize the following services to check whether he/she has registered his/her message(s) on this service. Services are available in English and Japanese.

DoCoMo: http://dengon.docomo.ne.jp/Einoticelist.cgi?es=0

SoftBanK: http://dengon.softbank.ne.jp/pc-e1.jsp

Willcom: http://dengon.willcom-inc.com/dengon/Top.do?language=E

EZWeb: http://dengon.ezweb.ne.jp/E/service.do?p1=dmb221

Please note that when you enter the mobile phone number for search on the webpage, you should enter the number without any dashes.