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One thing you can say about the U.S., is when a tragedy hits, businesses, organizations and the general public come together to provide whatever relief they can to those in need following the disaster.

 In the case of recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan, wireless carriers are coming together to offer free calls and texts to Japan in order for U.S. citizens to ensure the safety and livelihood of Japanese friends and family affected by the tragedy.

AT&T, for example, is offering free calls from the United States to Japan up until March 31.

Verizon Wireless is providing U.S. callers with free phone calls, texts and additional multimedia messaging to Japan for its wireless customers through April 10.

Vonage is also a participating provider who will not be charging its customers any per-minute charges for calls made to Japan through March 18.

If at any time your calls do not go through, Business Insider recommends using texting and messaging apps as an alternative as data usage has been shown to be stronger than calling at this unfortunate time.

In light of this awful disaster, AT&T (News - Alert) is also contributing $275,000 to three international relief agencies to assist ongoing relief efforts for the victims of the devastation in Japan. The three organizations include Telecoms San Frontieres, Project HOPE and Aidmatrix Network. According to a recent release, AT&T has 142 employees in Japan who have all been accounted for and are safe.

On a related note, Google (News - Alert) has also put a “crisis center” tool in place to help friends and loved ones find a missing person or provide information on someone they have yet to hear from following the disaster.  

While the recovery of Japan will certainly not happen overnight, it is comforting to know that our citizens are willing to come together as a country to pitch in however they can. 

Stefanie Mosca is a Web editor for TMCnet. Previously she worked as a freelance copy editor for Digital Surgeons LLC. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and a bachelor's degree in communication from the University of New Haven. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf