SoftBank Mobile and Yahoo Japan have created an online donation system that in the event of a major disaster allows people to extend their support to those in the affected area as quickly as possible.

Yahoo Japan has established a special Emergency Disaster Fund page on the Yahoo! JAPAN website to collect contributions to its fund.

SoftBank Mobile first began accepting donations to its disaster relief fund in January 2010. Payments can be made from SoftBank mobile phones using either SoftBank Charity Dial, a dedicated phone number that customers can dial to donate the charges of that call in full to a chosen charity, or Digital Contents, which accepts the full purchase cost of a mobile phone wallpaper item as a donation. From March 2011, SoftBank Mobile launched the SoftBank Simple Donation application, which provides iPhone and SoftBank smartphone users with an easy way to make donations.

Using these initiatives, during fiscal 2011 SoftBank Mobile and Yahoo Japan collected donations from customers and provided relief funds to people in the areas affected by numerous disasters. These included: the Great East Japan Earthquake; the torrential rain in Niigata and Fukushima; the tropical storm Talas (Typhoon No. 12); the floods in South East Asia; the 2011 Van Earthquake; and the floods in Mindanao.

Please refer to the links below for more details.

• Yahoo! Volunteer Online Donation “Emergency Disaster Fund to Support Affected Areas” (Yahoo Japan Corporation) (Japanese only)
• Support Activities in the Affected Areas (SoftBank Mobile Corp.) (Japanese only)

SoftBank Mobile's Disaster Message Board enables customers to register information about their safety in the event of a major disaster such as an earthquake. Family and friends can access the site using a mobile phone, iPhone, smartphone or desktop computer, regardless of their operator.^*1 The site allows a setting for automatic sending of information about safety upon registration to the preregistered email addresses of friends and family.

SoftBank Mobile provides mobile phones on loan free of charge to aid groups visiting disaster-stricken areas at request. It also provided mobile phones for public use at evacuation shelters and similar places when visiting such places to install temporary base stations using mobile base station vehicles, etc.

Please refer to the links below for more details.

• Disaster Message (SoftBank Mobile Corp.)
• Support Activities in the Affected Areas (SoftBank Mobile Corp.) (Japanese only)

Yahoo Japan operates a Disaster Information Update Service on all its service pages on the desktop and mobile versions of the Yahoo! JAPAN website. The regular service Yahoo! Weather provides near real-time updates of disaster-related information such as the situation at the scene and the level of damage in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake, tsunami or typhoon.

The service not only provides information that is relevant in the event of a disaster, but also focuses on raising awareness of disaster preparedness measures by providing useful information to help prevent the worsening of damage in a disaster situation. The page also includes information such as columns providing practical measures for disaster preparedness and disaster-related goods.

Please refer to the link below for more details.

• Yahoo! Disaster Information: Preparing for a Disaster (Yahoo Japan Corporation) (Japanese only)