Three US charities raise $51 mln for Japan quake

Leading the way among the charities contacted by AFP was the American Red Cross, which raised $47 million for Japan quake relief, including $2.6 million that came in via text message, spokeswoman Attie Poirier said.

World Vision USA raised $2.42 million for quake relief in Japan, about $24,000 through via mobile phone giving, spokeswoman Geraldine Ryerson-Cruz said.

And the US Salvation Army has raised $2.1 million, the bulk through online donations but around five percent via text message giving.

The idea of sending a text message to a number to donate $10 at a time for a cause took off last year when the impoverished Caribbean island of Haiti was struck by a 7.0-magnitude quake that flattened large tracts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and claimed more than 200,000 lives.

Within three days after the Haiti quake, US-based organizations had raised more than $10 million from text message donors alone, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the time.

Seven days after the Haiti quake, World Vision had received $15.8 million in donations for the island nation, Ryerson-Cruz told AFP.

"Haiti is a stone\'s throw from our country and people saw the images of the extreme poverty there and were moved to donate," she said.

"In the case of Japan, some people may hold back because Japan is such a developed country, a leading economy and has the resources that a country like Haiti doesn\'t have to respond to disasters.

"On the other hand, the scale of the devastation is so enormous in Japan -- it would cripple any country to have to start such a large-scale response on its own."

The official number of dead and missing after the Friday\'s massive earthquake and devastating tsunami was near 13,000 on Wednesday. More than 4,300 people were confirmed dead.

The quake and tsunami also damaged a nuclear power plant.

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