The Vietnam Red Cross (VRC) has handed over one million USD raised by Vietnamese people to Japanese victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Although the amount of money is not big compared with a large country like Japan, the good deed shows the sympathy and solidarity of Vietnamese people to Japanese victims who are struggling with the devastating impacts of the natural disasters, said VRC Chairman Tran Ngoc Tang on April 1.

According to VRC, after two weeks, the fund-raising campaign, to run until April 15, collected more than 34.5 billion VND (1.6 million USD) from 764 individuals, organisations and units.

The VRC also launched another programme which calls on people to send SMS messages to raise funds for the victims.

On March 29, over nine billion VND was collected at a charitable music programme jointly held by VRC, Vietnam Television, The Gioi & Vietnam (World and Vietnam) newspaper.

The Japanese Embassy in Vietnam also received over 14 billion VND from 600 individuals and units to support the earthquake victims. /.