Officials said Thursday they will investigate a report that India's military got a hint a tsunami was approaching an hour before it hit the southern coast, but bad communications and bureaucratic missteps kept a warning from reaching disaster officials in time.
The Indian Express, an independent English-language daily, quoted Air Force Chief S. Krishnaswamy as saying an air base in the southern city of Madras received a report at 7:30 a.m. Sunday that a mammoth earthquake had rocked India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The islands are hundreds of miles from India's mainland and lie north of Indonesia's Sumatra island, where the quake generated huge waves that radiated around the Indian Ocean and smashed into a dozen nations. Thousands of Indians were killed and thousands more left missing.
Krishnaswamy was quoted as saying that after the initial report of the quake, the Madras post lost its communication link with an Indian air base on Car Nicobar island and took until 7:50 a.m. to restore contact.
"The last message from Car Nicobar base was that the island is sinking and there is water all over," he said.
The story said Krishnaswamy told his assistant to alert the government in New Delhi at 8:15 a.m., but the warning was mistakenly sent via fax to the home of the former science and technology minister, rather than his successor, Kapil Sibal.
Asked about the Express story, Sibal said he couldn't comment on its accuracy. "We will need a separate investigation for that," he said.
Onkarmal Kedia, a spokesman for the Home Ministry, also declined to comment. Air force officials could not be reached for comment.
The Indian Ocean does not have a sensor-based tsunami alert system like the one that has been operating in the Pacific for four decades, and many world leaders and experts have responded to Asia's disaster by urging one for this region.
Sri Lanka's president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, joined those supporting an early warning system Thursday, saying the idea would be discussed at a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation conference Jan. 9. She said the U.S. and French governments had agreed to provide assistance in setting up a system.