
A team of Tzu Chi volunteers from Japan and Taiwan delivered 20 tons of relief goods to 7,000 people in northeast Japan who are living in shelters after their communities were devastated by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The national broadcaster NHK carried the distribution on its main nightly news, as a symbol of the love of countries across the world coming to Japan from Taiwan.
The volunteers carried out the distributions on March 25 and 26 in Ofunato and Rikuzentaka in Iwate prefecture. A city of 42,000 people on the coast, Ofunato was almost completely destroyed by the quake and tsunami, whose waves reached more than 20 metres and continued inland for nearly two miles. Initial estimates show more than 25 per cent of the buildings, including 3,500 houses, destroyed and more than 200 people dead. Rikunzentakata was similarly devastated, with few of its buildings left standing.


NHK filmed the distribution in Ofunato on March 25 and broadcast it on its main nightly news at 9 p.m. that evening.
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