>I saw news reports that some of the Asian governments admitted they could have warned people before it hit, but they didn't.

Definitely more could have been done. It is a disaster beyond comprehension but it is also true that local governments were negligent.

- No early warning system. True the area seldom gets tsunamis (as oppossed to the Pacific, where a system of buoys and early warning is in place), but there is a known fault in the area. Someday it had to happen. It happened before (Krakatoa Island in 1883).
- I heard the President of Sri Lanka in NPR saying that they don't have enough helicopters in their Air Force to reach the innaccessible areas.
- Seismographs all over the world detected it. Maybe not enough time for Sumatra (too close) but enough time for other places. The tsunami took 100 minutes to get to Sri Lanka. An amazing speed to cover considering the distance (about 700 miles from the epicenter). But enough time to get some warning and get radio stations and other broadcasting systems to tell people to get to higher ground. At least some more people could've been saved. Not a word reached them. Outright negligence.

When you have such a huge number of people living on the beach, in flimsy fishing villages, you have an obligation to your citizens to have some emergency system in place.

It reminds me of the earthquake in Turkey a few years ago. A lot of people lived right on top of a known fault. Then they complain when it cracks. My brother-in-law, and a lot of other people live right on the St. Andreas fault in California. I tell him he's nuts.

There was an interesting article years ago in Discover magazine as to how people live on top of old lava flows in small towns almost on the slopes of Mt. Rainier near Seattle. They know that the next eruption will bury those towns. They don't seem to care. Even after they saw what Mt. St. Helens did.

Sure, I live in a hurricane area in Florida. But with hurricanes you can see them coming, we have the technology and we can get out of the way two or three days in advance. With eartquakes you can't. For tsunamis with a little luck you have enough time to get to higher ground. That technology exists. Was invented in Japan and it is deployed all over the Pacific. Hopefully it will be in the Indian Ocean too in the future.

All of this said, we have to think now of the millions of displaced people and try to help them the best we can. There are many relief organizations that are accepting donations. Even Amazon.com makes it easy now to do a 1-click donation to the Red Cross. Let's all help as best we can.

Interesting article from the Australian Spaceguard Survey: "Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts"
http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/spacegd7.html