JAPAN –TSUNAMI – RFL UPDATE

     International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), working closely with the Japanese Red Cross, has launched a special Family Links website (www.familylinks.icrc.org/eng/familylinks-japan) to help people seeking to re-establish contact with family members and friends missing since the earthquake and tsunami. The website is in English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese.

     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 missing family members and friends, encouraging them to get in touch. The humanitarian service provided by the website is available to all and is free of charge.

The areas particularly affected are the prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi and Ibaraki. These areas host significant communities of Chinese, Koreans and Brazilians. These communities may face greater difficulties to get in touch with their loved one abroad as they may not be included in the Disaster Message Board system operating in Japan.

• National Societies are invited to promote the use of their website and to post a link pointing to the Family Links-website:
  
  www.familylinks.icrc.org/eng/familylinks-japan
  1) Disaster Message Board
  If you have the mobile phone number of your family member in the affected areas, you may check the following services to check whether he/she has registered his/her message(s) on this service. Services are available in English and Japanese.
  
  If you do not know the mobile phone company of your family members, please try one by one.
  
  DoCoMo  i-mode: http://dengon.docomo.ne.jp/Etop.cgi
  SoftBanK:  http://dengon.softbank.ne.jp/pc-e1.jsp
   http://dengon.ezweb.ne.jp/E/service.do
  WILLCOM
  http://dengon.willcom-inc.com/dengon/Top.do;jsessionid=E4B369806E7F23930286BEA7D875A062.ap1?language=E
  
  NB. When you enter the mobile phone number for search on the webpage, please note that you should remove the country code 0081 and add "0" at the beginning.
  eg. 　0081-90-8877-6655 →　090-8877-6655
  
  2) Embassies
  You may also contact your embassy/consulate in Japan.
  
  To find contact information of the embassy, please visit the webpage of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, List of Embassies, Consulates and International Organizations in Japan:
  http://www.mofa.go.jp/about/emb_cons/protocol/index.html
  

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