I think close cooperation between private companies and the government has been a trait of Japanese society for a long time. Instead of a single governmental al

I think close cooperation between private companies and the government has been a trait of Japanese society for a long time. Instead of a single governmental alert service, you'll get the government, NHK, cell phone companies, transport companies, etc., cooperating to get the information out there quickly. For example, the weather service website was being hammered and rather hard to access, but you could see reports on the NHK and Yahoo! websites while the quake was still going on, including tsunami predictions - it's automated, very fast and effective. The siren systems are also automated. The signal is relayed by governmental offices.