Japan Addresses Takata Airbag Flaw TOKYO - In April last year, Japan's transportation minister was asked at a news conference about potentially dangerous airbags made by Takata, the Japanese auto parts supplier. About 700,000 cars had just been recalled in the country because of defective Takata airbags, part of a larger global recall that has since ballooned to include more than 14 million vehicles. The only response offered by the minister, Akihiro Ohta, according to a transcript from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, was that he "did not grasp the situation" and would "report back later." Nineteen months after that news conference, Mr. Ohta has become vocal on the issue. Since mid-November, in a series of stern announcements, disclosures and directives to Takata and automakers, the safety authorities in Japan have sharply intensified their public response to deadly airbag flaws. "There is a risk that trust in Japanese carmakers could weaken, so the problem must be resolved as quickly as possible," Mr. Ohta told reporters on Friday. Under Scrutiny Shares of the airbag maker Takata are down 57 percent this year, after the recall of millions of cars fitted with the company's products. Exploding Takata airbags have been linked to at least five deaths: four in the United States and one in Malaysia. No deaths or injuries have been reported in Japan, although millions of vehicles here have been subject to recalls. Mr. Ohta said the ministry would use its power to force carmakers to expand those recalls, by ordering them to include Takata-made driver's-side airbags suspected of harboring faults - something United States regulators have already begun. "This is an extremely important safety issue," Mr. Ohta said. The newly active approach in Japan comes as American politicians and regulators have tightened scrutiny of Takata and the carmakers that use its products, particularly Honda, Takata's largest customer. Executives from Takata and Honda testified in a Senate hearing on the issue on Nov. 20. It also reflects growing unease about the problem in Japan, where the number of recalled vehicles has climbed past 2.6 million. An additional 200,000 cars would need to be repaired under the expanded driver's-side airbag recall disclosed by Mr. Ohta on Friday, all of them sold by Honda and Mazda. "This is good for Japanese consumers," said Masato Nakamura, a lawyer who is part of a committee of Japan's national bar association that advocates stricter product safety laws. Referring to the more assertive response by American regulators until now, he added, "Japanese consumers have been taken lightly so far, so this is a positive change." Photo Various components of a Takata airbag, taken from a Honda vehicle. Credit Gary Cameron/Reuters Japanese media outlets have expanded their coverage of the problem, which had previously been muted. "Is my car O.K.?" asked the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest daily newspapers, in a headline this week over a story on the growing list of models subject to recalls. So far, just four Takata airbags are known to have burst during car accidents in Japan, according to the government. None of those incidents resulted in an occupant's being injured by flying debris from a ruptured airbag inflater, the part identified as the source of the problem, as has happened in incidents in the United States and the fatality in Malaysia. The Transport Ministry disclosed on Wednesday that a further 10 cases of ruptured airbags had been reported by automobile scrapyards, including one case involving a model that had not yet been subject to a recall notice. Before vehicles are dismantled, scrapyard operators are required by law to deploy the airbags as a safety precaution. The ruptures occurred during that procedure, the ministry said. Toyota, Japan's biggest carmaker, expanded its Takata-related recalls Thursday to cover driver's-side airbags. The automaker and its minicar subsidiary, Daihatsu, said they were recalling a total of about 85,000 vehicles, all outside the United States, to fix driver's-side airbags with faulty inflaters. The Transport Ministry is also putting pressure on automakers to move more quickly to repair vehicles already subject to recalls. The scale of the problem has left carmakers scrambling to find replacement parts and many drivers waiting long periods for repairs. In both Japan and the United States, some automakers have disabled airbags in customers" cars until they can be fixed. "At dealerships that have the parts in stock, we have been replacing the inflaters with new ones," Toyota said in a statement this week. We are working to replace the involved inflaters as quickly as we can.