Alex,
one problem with the warning system is that many of these people would not have tv or radio. india did spend billions no nukes but like all countries they consider their military/national security a better investment than humanitarian causes, other wise poverty and homelessness would be non existent in the west. the problem in areas like this is that even when they do have procedures in place to deal with something like this the system goes unused for a long time and falls into disrepair. the truely full time working models, like those in japan, are relied upon a lot and are maintained as tsunami's are regular threats.
Slán
~M

>OK. So they don't invest a few million in a buoy-seismograph early warning system. I'll buy that (even though, India for example invested a few billion in developing nuclear weapons). But consider the 'cost' of alerting the people by radio/TV. Not much, right? All it takes is organization and a willigness to do it. If seismographs detected this all over the world, how come the involved governments didn't react? As said, those on the Indian Ocean's west coast (India, Sri Lanka) had almost an hour an a half to broadcat a warning. Maybe some people would have been saved, considering that many people saw the wave, ran and survived.