Muslims Lead Japan Aid

SINGAPORE – Joining world efforts to help Japan overcome one of the worst disasters, Muslims around the world are mobilizing to raise funds to aid the quake-stricken country.

“This is our responsibility as a Muslim, to help our human brothers wherever in the world,” a Muslim Singaporean worshipper told News Asia as he placed his contribution at a donation box at a mosque following Friday prayers.
A donation drive was launched by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), which has placed donation boxes in 69 mosques across the country to collect cash to Japan relief efforts.
Japan was struck by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake last week, triggering massive 10-metre tsunami waves and tsunami warnings across the pacific.
Facing the most powerful quake in 140 years, thousands fled their homes from the coastline, which was hammered by the huge tsunami that turned houses and ships into floating debris.
Although being some 5,000 kilometers away from Japan, Muslim Singaporeans were shocked by the scale of the tragedy.
“I feel that it is important for us to help other people in need during disasters,” another worshipper said as he was emerging from Al Khair Mosque in Teck Whye Crescent.
The boxes will be marked “Singapore Muslim Community’s Contribution to the Humanitarian Relief Efforts in Japan”.
Elsewhere in Asia, Iran has dispatched relief team carrying humanitarian aid to Japan.
“The Japanese Embassy (in Tehran) announced Tokyo’s readiness to receive the Iranian Red Crescent relief aid,” head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society Abolhassan Faqih told IRNA.
“We urgently began preparing to send our relief teams and aides to the Japanese victims of the disaster,” Faqih added.
In the United States, mosques have called on Muslims to donate to relief the quake-stricken Japanese.
“Because the Japanese community has been a great support with the Muslim community against Islamophobia and so in response to their support for us, we’re raising a support for them,” Rabia Mirhadian from the Islamic Cultural Center told ABC News.
Islamic Relief USA, a US-based non-profit charity, also launched an emergency appeal to donors to aid survivors of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami disasters and raised more than $134,000 as of Friday.

Aftermath

The Muslim aid comes as Japan’s humanitarian agencies were scrambling to help thousands of families who are currently homeless and in need of food, water and blankets in near-freezing temperatures in northeastern coastal areas.
“Everything is gone, including money,” Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, told Reuters as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter for the homeless.
Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands.   
Another 10,700 people are missing, many feared dead.  
Some 390,000 people, many elderly, are homeless, living in the shelter camps, with food, water, medicine and heating fuel being in short supply.
Scientists also fear that a Worm Moon, when the full moon is closest to Earth, could bring floods to devastated areas.
Meanwhile, engineers attached a power cable to the outside of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan in an attempt to get water pumps going to cool down overheated fuel rods and prevent deadly spread of radiation.
“If they are successful in getting the cooling infrastructure up and running, that will be a significant step forward in establishing stability,” said Eric Moore, a nuclear power expert at US-based FocalPoint Consulting Group.
If that fails, one option is to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.
The method was used to the Chernobyl reactor in 1986, scene of the world’s worst nuclear reactor disaster.
Health officials and the UN atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful.
But amid their distress, Japanese were took some heart from the 279 nuclear plant workers toiling in the wreckage, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits sealed by duct tape.
“My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are doing,” Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said.

Source: OnIslam