1 Japan's Red Cross Society said Thursday it has received 30 billion yen (dlrs 300 million) in donations, mostly from other Japanese, for victims of the devastating Kobe earthquake. The total exceeded any of its previous relief campaigns.
2 Meanwhile, local officials announced that damage from the 7.2 magnitude quake, Japan's deadliest in more than 70 years, is likely to exceed dlrs 100 billion in the worst-hit prefecture.
3 The government of Hyogo prefecture, which includes Kobe, estimated damage worth 9.5 trillion yen (dlrs 95 billion), 1 trillion yen (10 billion) more than its previous calculation. It said the total would probably exceed 10 trillion yen (dlrs 100 billion).
4 Authorities Thursday confirmed 5,104 dead, six missing and classified nearly 250,000 people as homeless from the quake.
5 The national government Thursday said it would spend almost 15 billion yen (dlrs 150 million) to build 30,000 temporary housing units. Quake victims Thursday moved into four prefab houses, the first completed since the temblor.
6 'It was wonderful. It was too good for me,' said Kimiko Ishibitsu, 70, of her new 29.1-square meter (105-square foot) space with two rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a toilet. The four homes are all on hard-hit Awaji Island.
7 Many people will have to spend two to three more months in shelters such as tents and converted school gymnasiums before housing is available, Rumiko Kadonaga of the Hyogo government said Thursday.
8 'We are very concerned whether volunteers can continue their activities for that long,' she said. 'We can't estimate how many volunteers are working in the quake-stricken areas. It might be 50,000 or 100,000.'
9 In normal times, Japanese are reluctant to help people who aren't family, friends or close neighbors, and people here are also sometimes reluctant to accept gifts for fear of becoming obligated to the giver.
10 But the Kobe quake has brought out charitable impulses throughout the nation.
11 All over Japan -- at temples, convenience stores, outside train stations and even in health clubs -- collection boxes ask passersby for contributions for victims of the Jan. 17 quake.
12 Private citizens have moved to compensate for what many have criticized as insufficient government efforts.
13 In Kobe, a city of 1.4 million people 435 kilometers (270 miles) west of Tokyo, examples of good will abound. Cooked sweet potato vendors have passed out what for many was the only hot food. Some students' hands were swollen from making hundreds of rice balls a day.
14 Religious groups, companies, even organized crime syndicates have been providing baths, handing out hot meals and blankets, and giving other comfort to victims.
15 The government was giving out three meals a day, but some people who had originally been satisfied with rice balls now wanted better quality and hot food, Hyogo official Tsuyoshi Nishioka said Thursday.
16 'People keep wanting more and better,' he said. 'There's no limit. Some people even asked for a washing machine.'
17 An aftershock Thursday registered 4.1 magnitude, but there were no reports of damage or injury. There have been more than 1,350 aftershocks in the two and a half weeks since the quake.
18 A U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency team was touring Kobe on Thursday to assess damage and share expertise.
19 The Japan Red Cross Society, which estimated more than 90 percent of the giving came from Japanese, said its previous highest donation total was 18.5 billion yen (dlrs 185 million) after the 1993 Okushiri quake in northern Japan. That quake killed more than 200 people.

The national government Thursday said it would spend almost 15 billion yen ( dlrs 150 million ) to build 30 , 000 temporary housing units . Quake victims Thursday moved into four prefab houses , the first completed since the temblor .
to build 30 , 000 temporary housing units
Where are the housing units being built?