Akio Toyoda

TOYOTA, Japan — President Akio Toyoda promised shareholders a revived Toyota despite the production disruptions from the earthquake and tsunami that decimated northeastern Japan on March 11, and first offered his prayers for those killed.

The disaster dominated Friday’s annual shareholders meeting at Toyota headquarters in the town named after the world’s biggest automaker.

It started with a solemn moment of silence for those killed and missing, now estimated at more than 23,000 people. The first question from investors was about what the company was doing in response to the destruction.

But the overall mood was supportive and upbeat, periodically interrupted by applause, unlike shareholder meetings in recent years when Toyota officials were on the defensive for massive global recalls caused by quality lapses and profit drops that followed the financial crisis.

Toyota executives said they felt vindicated by the decision by U.S. authorities earlier this year that there were no electronic-system defects in Toyota vehicles, as some had claimed, and the problem with unintended acceleration had been from faulty floor mats.

“We showed Toyota does not lie, and Toyota does not cover up,” Toyoda said.

When a shareholder asked whether the company planned action against those who had made the allegations, Toyota Executive Vice President Shinichi Sasaki said the company had put the recall woes behind it.

“The American people have already recognized that we were in the right,” Sasaki told shareholders.

The quake and tsunami damaged key parts suppliers in northeastern Japan, and vehicle production for some models is still not back to normal, three months later.

That is crimping Toyota sales, even for popular models, just at a time when it was starting to recover from a two-year recall fiasco.