Despite the record amounts of snow dumped chiefly over eastern Japan in the past several days, no emergency warnings were issued by the Meteorological Agency as it stuck rigidly to criteria it set last year, prompting an expert to urge the agency to be more flexible.
The central government, meanwhile, has drawn flak for failing to respond quickly enough to weather-related incidents, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe taken to task by an opposition lawmaker for dining out on the weekend as reports came in of blizzards cutting off villages and stranding vehicles on highways.
The weather agency started implementing a new set of criteria for issuing an "emergency warning" — deemed graver than an "advisory" or simple "warning" — in August.