The wonders of modern social media contributed to this heartwarming act of giving from online communities all across the globe. Let's chip in to this noble cause of helping the victims of the devastating disaster in Japan by purchasing a copy of "2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake", exclusively from Amazon.com.

Better known as #Quakebook as in its Twitter hashtag, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories From The Japan Earthquake is an anthology ebook with an unusual origin like no other.

Initiated via a mere tweet requesting for contribution and aid in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic disaster by OurManInAbiko (who tweets as @ourmaninabiko), a British resident in Japan, on March 18th, what followed was a whirlwind of overwhelming response from online communities all over the globe. Within hours, numerous essays, illustrations and photographs flowed in. And within a week, OurManInAbiko received contributions from more than 200 people from all walks of life, including Yoko Ono, William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein, as well as the people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it. More than 30,000 words of short personal accounts, along with art and photography was collated and ready to be published within the short timeframe of a week with the help of more than one hundred editors, translators and other volunteers.

With the project subsequently met with a slight delay for its publishing, Kevin Carroll, a Tokyo resident, negotiated the publishing deal with Amazon, who immediately came on board with all commission fees waived. In another display of grace and goodwill, that means 100% of the purchase price will go directly towards helping the victims of the disaster.

Titled after the exact time the quake struck, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake was released for sale on Amazon last week on April 11th and has made it to No. 3 on the Movers and Shakers list in Amazon's Kindle Store in half a day.

The below is an introduction of the ebook from the #Quakebook website:

The 2:46 Quakebook project started with a tweet. It rapidly grew, and has beocme a way that we could help all those hit by the the March 11th, 2011 earthquake and its aftermath.

Led by OurManInAbiko, a call went out across Twitter for contributors to create a book to raise funds for Red Cross Japan. The idea was to share the stories and experiences of people actually on the ground during the earthquake, whilst raising funds for the Red Cross.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by this event; from those directly in the earthquake zone, the path of the tsunami, in the evacuation area around the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, to those in many other areas of Japan, whose lives have been disrupted by rolling power blackouts, poor road conditions, food and water supply difficulties, and more.

The contributions in 2:46 Quakebook have come from a wide variety of sources, and include photographs, personal accounts, drawings; each telling their own tale.

All revenues from sales of the book go directly to Red Cross, Japan. We urge you to buy the book, buy a copy as a gift, promote it, share it, tweet about it, review it, blog about it, link to it, etc.

The tale of the evolution of QuakeBook can be found under the hashtag #quakebook on Twitter.

For those who would like to have a previewing look at what the ebook is about, head over to the official site for some excerpts contained.

We here at The Daily Zombies have never been an avid followers of anyone's tweets, and harbored a not-so-secretly uncalled-for distaste for any keen followers of Twitter. However, the gracious display from these strangers scattered across the globe brought together for a common, noble cause via Twitter, is indeed a much-needed shinning bright light from humanity (as corny as that sounds) in this dark time of crisis.

2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake is available at Amazon.com at $9.99, with all proceeds from sales of the ebook going directly to the Japanese Red Cross for their relief efforts. And if you do not own a Kindle, you can still buy and read the ebook on your computer or smartphone by downloading free Kindle reader at Amazon. Just so you know that there is just no excuse not to.

In closing, embedded below is the video of the story behind the making of Quakebook told by Our Man in Abiko himself, followed by the official video of the project, featuring Scala & Kolacny Brothers and Kings of Leon.

#quakebook featuring Scala & Kolacny Brothers and Kings of Leon from Quakebook on Vimeo.