I'm not knocking the Japanese because of a perceived inaction but because they have stubbornly stuck to the one strategy that is not working. they should have given the "water strategy" four or five days then abandodned it as its not working.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing every day and expecting a different result...thats appropriate in this instance.
In Japan, you have to know that “yes” does not mean anyone agrees to your question or can even answer it, only that they heard it. It took me two years of dealing with them in product development to understand this. Asking for an answer to something from one person or department is just not done in their culture, so press conferences and examination of comments produced by one will be quite contradictory and confusing. It does not mean they do not know what they are doing. I have more faith in their resolve to fix this than ours.