Malaysia to send Smart team to Japan.. NOT

A piece of news came through regarding Malaysia's offer to send its SMART team to Japan to help out with the earthquake rescue effort. According to 'The Star' on 13th March:-

PEKAN: A Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue (Smart) team comprising 15 members and six tracker dogs has been put on standby to be flown to tsunami-hit Japan on two RMAF C-130 aircraft.
A Malaysian medical team is also expected to leave with the team. As at 2am today, the planes had not left Subang airport.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the Japanese government had requested assistance to help with search and rescue efforts in the country.

Then on the 14th of March, from the same newspaper :-

KOTA KINABALU: The Japanese government has put on hold the offer to send the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) for the time being.
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said the Japanese government had thanked Malaysia for offering to send in the SMART team but felt it was not necessary at this point in time.
“The Japanese government had informed us that the services of the SMART team are not necessary but they will notify us if it is needed later. Thus the team has been asked to stand down for now,” he said here.

Did the Japanese government request Malaysian government's help or not in the first place? Or was the government jumping the gun altogether? When I read the first report, I was already skeptical of statement regarding the request from the Japanese government.

My thoughts were that the Japanese government must already have a large pool of trained and experienced rescue workers especially since they are prone to earthquakes. What could a 15 man Smart team from Malaysia do?

And on the same topic, should a major disaster strike Malaysia, do we have even 10 percent of the numbers of trained and expert rescue workers compared to those in Japan?