Disaster Relief

Japan is set to make the traumatic leap from being one of the world's most generous aid donors to one of its biggest aid recipients as it begins the mammoth task of cleaning up the wreckage left by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

According to the World Bank, the total cost of the recovery will be $235 billion (£143 billion), which would make it the world's most expensive disaster. The Japanese Red Cross said it had received $2.2 billion in foreign donations but had been unable to distribute the bulk of it.

With the ability to feed 20,000 people from one mobile kitchen, and a chain of command so tightly run it would make a military officer proud, the Southern Baptist Convention teams are the backbone of disaster relief in the South. Nearly 95,000 Baptists across the country are trained to handle disasters. After the Red Cross and Salvation Army, the Baptist group is the biggest disaster relief organization in the country.

Thousands of church members are doing their part to help the South recover from the recent tornadoes. They raise money, sort clothing donations and hand out water.

More than $29 million was raised to help flood victims in Nashville last year. About $25 million has been spent to help flood victims. And those flood dollars are still at work, as nonprofits help victims put their homes and lives back together a year later. Despite that good work, critics question why the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee still has millions of dollars unspent a year after the flood. That criticism prompted a new state law, passed last week, requiring charities to tell the secretary of state how they are spending flood donations.

Charitable benefactors are giving less to their usual causes as they throw their support behind Queensland's flood and cyclone victims.

Some fundraiser organisers are supporting disaster relief instead of their traditional causes, while others have postponed events until Queensland is better recovered.

In the hours following the March 11 earthquake in northeast Japan, the New York-based nonprofit Japan Society launched an earthquake relief fund.

As of Wednesday, a little more than $3.5 million has come in from over 11,700 donations. Among the thousands of donors is gallerist Joan Mirviss who specializes in Japanese art. With a personal gift and a percentage of profits from recent sales from her gallery, she's donated $10,500 so far.

Wells Fargo customers logging into ATMs in recent weeks found a new option on their screens. Next to the box that says "Deposit Cash" is one saying "Donate to Charity." Donate they did. In just 10 days, the ubiquitous ATMs collected more than $1 million for Japan relief efforts by the American Red Cross. The experiment marks the first time ATMs have been used nationwide - by any bank - to raise money for a charity, say national banking officials.

"Don't send money to Japan." Depending on how you word it, you get anywhere from 3,000 to 8 million results for a Google search of that concept. Some are people complaining that Americans give too much overseas and not enough to help folks in their own backyards. Others question the integrity and effectiveness of the organizations collecting the money. There's reaction to Japan telling the world, "Gee, thanks, that's nice and all — but we really don't need your money." And so on.

“2:46 Quakebook,” a Twitter-sourced collection of personal accounts of the quake and its aftermath that will soon be available for purchase here, is one group’s response to the disaster initiated by the local blogging community that aims to raise money for relief efforts (the title refers to the time at which the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck on March 11). All proceeds will go to the Japanese Red Cross.

A couple of weeks ago, social-game company Zynga announced an ambitious goal of raising $2 million for victims of the earthquake and related disasters in Japan.

Not only has the “FarmVille” maker exceeded its goal, but today it said pop star Lady Gaga would be donating $750,000 to Zynga’s fundraising efforts with Save the Children, bringing the total amount it has raised to more than $3 million.

Digital maps assembled by far-flung networks of online volunteers through the process called crowd-sourcing have been powerful tools in humanitarian relief work in the last few years.

In Japan after the earthquake and tsunami, crowd-sourced maps have helped give local relief workers a clearer picture of the situation on the ground as they set priorities for food, shelter and sanitation services. The Web maps are also being used to track the fighting in Libya and the needs of refugees fleeing that conflict.