Japan Leader Points to Disaster Response Failures Japan's prime minister is acknowledging failures in the government response to last year's earthquake and tsunami, including shoddy crisis-management and delays in releasing information. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters Saturday that Japan has learned key lessons and hopes to do better and regain trust from the people and from other nations. He made the comments to reporters at the prime minister's residence ahead of the anniversary of the March 11 disaster that killed nearly 20,000 people in northeastern Japan and set off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.