Naming disasters and emotional ownership

In an earlier post, "Whose disaster is it, anyway?", I argue that emotional ownership is important for victims of a disaster to recover from that disaster. A translator, who works for the Prime Minister's office, argues that simply calling it "the 3/11 disaster" is good enough.

• Translator: In our translations we use "the 3/11 disaster," etc
• Me: Okay globally. Emotional ownership first to Tohoku, second to Japan, third to globe.
• Translator: No, not global ownership issues; the term that will be used most around the globe. Globally speaking, it'll end up being "the 2011 Japan quake," like 2004 Indonesia, 2010 Chile.
• Me: The Kan administration's first and most lasting contribution?
• Translator: We did lots of translation for the Kantei; convinced them to abandon "Tohoku -off the Pacific" [sic]. I just don't think the question of labeling/linguistic ownership is a vital one here.