Tokyo: Donations to Ishikawa Prefecture, hit hard by the Jan. 1 powerful earthquake in central Japan, have reached around 17 billion yen, prefectural officials said Thursday.

According to the officials, 223,365 donations totaling 16,925 million yen had been made as of Tuesday.

A committee comprising members of related organizations will decide how to allocate the funds, which will be distributed to disaster-afflicted people via local municipalities.

Satofull Co., a Tokyo-based operator of a website for the central government’s “furusato nozei” hometown tax donation system, allows users to make donations for disaster-stricken municipalities without receiving customary return gifts or burdening them with related administrative work.

This service for disaster-hit areas was introduced after the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto was hit by big quakes in 2016.

For those affected by the Jan. 1 temblor, the service had garnered some 84,000 donations worth over 1.26 billion yen as of Wednesday, marking the fastest pace on record, a Satofull official said. “We guess the heavy news coverage given every day has raised public awareness.”

Over the six days to Monday, many people visited a trade fair for products from Ishikawa and the neighboring prefecture of Fukui held at Keio Department Store Co.’s Shinjuku outlet in Tokyo.

A part-timer in her 30s bought traditional sweets adorned with gold leaf, which is a specialty of Kanazawa, Ishikawa’s capital. “I came to cheer up” disaster-afflicted areas, she said.

“I can’t go there, but I want to do what I can,” said a visitor in his 70s, who was among many people who made donations at the event site.

JIJI Press