On 26th Dec '04 early morning several hrs before the catastrophy happened, Honolulu Tsunami Monitoring center have been trying to call our Meteorological Dept. monitoring center in Palekelle and Colombo but failed. They also got in touch with presidents' office however it was informed that she's out of the island on a private vacation. Finally they called Prime minister's secretariat, but Prime minister was out on his morning walk.
Thinking at least it's best to keep him vigilant on this, the Honolulu officials left the message with the person who picked up the phone to inform Primeminister that there's a Tsunami coming from Indonesia.On prime minister's return, the operator told prime minister about the call, said TSunami from Indonesia is arriving in 2 hrs.
Prime minister promptly took action to send a delegation to Katunayake with name boards ' Welcome Mr. T. Sunami - Indonesia..