The Tokyo branch of the Japanese Red Cross Society has sent bedding and related supplies to areas hit by the New Year's Day quake to help evacuees have sound sleep.

The items include mattresses, pillows, eye masks and earplugs.

Red Cross officials hope the supplies will help evacuees keep as warm as possible and avoid suffering from hypothermia amid the cold weather. They want to help evacuees shorten their direct contact time with cold floors in shelters.

Thirteen Red Cross employees and volunteers worked on Wednesday and Thursday to take out the supplies stored in a warehouse in a Tokyo suburb and load them onto two trucks.

The vehicles, carrying a total of 3,600 sets of bedding and related supplies, are expected to arrive at an evacuation shelter in Ishikawa Prefecture on Thursday.

A Tokyo branch official, Nakamaru Masataka, says they hope the bedding will help evacuees feel a bit warmer so they can take a good rest.

Nakamaru says he thinks the situation in the quake-hit areas remains severe, so his colleagues plan to do what they can to help.