About 260 employees of Japanese copy machine maker Fuji Xerox were sent to Ishinomaki, a city in Myiagi Prefecture, to help digitize documents that have been damaged in last year’s tsunami flooding.

Volunteers in the area collected about 7,000 to 10,000 documents, including papers from city offices and files from local schools. They have been working with cleaning and restoring them. The people from Fuji Xerox will help wash, dry and scan the documents using scanner-copiers that they are bringing along.

“We sent the employees along with two of our scanner-copiers as a sort of trial. If this is successful, we will consider continuing and expanding to other regions,” a company spokesperson said.

Lost paper-based documents have caused many problems to local governments and families in issues like resolving insurance claims, handing out government assistance and establishing ownership of banking and other accounts.