On March 11th, AKB48 and their sister groups SKE48, NMB48, and HKT48 each held a special charity live in their respective theaters. SDN48 also held a handshaking event at Tokyo Big Site. The 282 members of these five groups held a joint broadcast and asked their audience to hold a moment of silence in remembrance to those who lost their lives in the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami exactly a year ago.

After the one minute of silence, the 282 members performed their song called "Dareka no Tame ni � What can I do for someone? �" (also the name of this project) in a simultaneous broadcast. During this song, many of the members including Maeda Atsuko (20) and Oshima Yuko (23) shed tears as they thought about the victims of the 2011 natural disaster.

Since May 22nd of last year, 48 members of this group had visited the disaster areas 10 times to bring their performances for the victims there and at this event, chosen members of this group individually expressed their experience at this charity live. AKB48 research member Iwata Karen (13), who grew up in Sendai and experienced the disaster, stated, �I am going to do my best to become a hope of light to the victims there. Please continue to support those victims,� and urged the audience for more support. AKB48�s leader, Takahashi Minami (20) pledged that they would continue to work towards the recovery of the disaster areas and continue their visits to those areas as well.

After this one and a half hour event was over, AKB48 and its 90 members held a handshaking event for the audience and thanked their cooperation for this large project. All the official shops of this idol group were open for donations until 9 PM and gathered over 2,00,000 yen together (~$25,000 USD) at the end of the day.

Check out photos from this charity live below:

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Source & Images: Oricon News