In possibly the worst case of government information system and management failure, the Indian government wasted valuable time in issuing the first tsunami alert (Channel News Asia International, 2004; Chadda, 2005). In a chronology of events that reflects the poor state of information management within that country, the Indian Air Force was advised of the earthquake at 7.30 a.m. (0200 GMT). Before the communications link failed, a frantic message that: the island was sinking and there is water all over was received. However, it was some 45 minutes later at 8.15 a.m. that the Chief of the Air Force requested an administrative assistant to alert the defence ministry.

Independently, at 8.54 a.m. the Indian Meteorological Department sent a warning fax message to the former science minister, not the current minister who was installed in May 2004 due to national elections and a change in the ruling government. Unaware of this mistake, the department sent another fax to the Home Ministry's disaster control room at 9.41 a.m. Nearly an hour later at 10.30 a.m. (0500 GMT), the disaster control room advised the cabinet secretariat. India's crisis management group met at 1.00 p.m. (0730 GMT) that afternoon (five and a half hours after the initial alert).

To make matters worse, the head of the science and technology department stated publicly that the first advice his department received on the earthquake-tsunami was what they saw on the television! Indian seismologists had monitored the seismic event, but in their complacency had ignored the data as it was outside India's geographic borders. Critical and relevant early warning information was ignored and thousands were now dead or missing.

In Indonesia, the situation appeared little better than the experiences of India. Some 20 minutes after the earthquake hit, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, operated by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in Honolulu issued e-mail messages to Indonesian officials warning them of the likelihood of a tsunami and impending disaster. US officials were unable to confirm what had happened to those warning messages (Kayal and Wald, 2004). Additionally, because the US monitoring centres concentrate on the Pacific Ocean, NOAA staff had no counterpart addresses or contacts in the affected countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The well-intentioned collaboration and information sharing between national geological survey organisations had not been sufficiently progressed to assist effected countries. Despite the best efforts of the US scientists, inter-government information transfer and sharing had failed.

The International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) recorded the earthquake on 78 of its seismic monitoring stations within minutes of the event. A total of 71 stations were using the seismic, six the hydro-acoustic, and one the infrasound technologies for the earthquake monitoring task (CTBTO, 2005). Following standard operating practices during the Christmas and New Year holiday period, the first automatic event list containing the Sumatra earthquake data was released by the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna to affected treaty signatories (i.e. Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Oman) about two hours after the event, that is at about 03:00 UTC on 26 December 2004 (The Times Newspaper, 2005). The second and third automatic event lists followed at 6 hours and 12 hours after the event. In this case, not only was the transmission of the warning information slow due to personnel absences, but some of the worst effected countries were not informed (i.e. were not signatories to the treaty or did not have data centres established). Again information transfers and sharing had failed.

In another unusual chain of events, Geoscience Australia's earthquake monitoring centre reacted quickly to the incoming data and issued warning messages to Australia's regional embassies within 33 minutes of the initial earthquake. However, no warning information or earthquake data was passed to foreign governments in accordance with proper inter-government and diplomatic protocols being observed. Information transfer between the impacted countries had failed. With thousands of lives in the balance, the current government to government protocols, built on outdated foreign country engagement guidelines and outmoded cold war philosophies, may require substantial simplification and improved flexibility (The Times Newspaper, 2005).

The US NOAA commenced using a deep-water sensor array to measure water pressure and changes in water depth as a tsunami wave passes overhead in 2003 (NOAA, 2003). The Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) sensors deployed to the Pacific Ocean basin are more accurate than the seismograph and tidal gauge sensor systems, and generally lead to fewer tsunami false alarms. Importantly, DART ocean floor sensors transfer the critical tsunami warning information (i.e. water pressure and depth changes) via acoustic telemetry to sensors mounted on surface buoys, which in turn relay the information to the monitoring centres using radio frequency and geostationary satellite communication systems (NOAA, 2003). Clearly, noting that no tsunami monitoring system is deployed in the Indian Ocean, the modern technologies, such as DART sensors, that are capable of detecting tsunami waves and distributing this vital government warning information presently exist and are protecting the Pacific Ocean basin.

The importance of the DART sensor arrays and associated information technologies cannot be underestimated given the costs of issuing incorrect warning information. In one notable case of a tsunami false alarm, the evacuation of a section of Hawaii in 1986 cost the US government approximately $30 million (Vergano, 2004). Additionally, from the social perspective, false alarms have proven to be counter-productive, including breeding psychological complacency to warning signs, and lulling the community into a false sense of security.

Satellite based imaging systems deployed by the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing at the National University of Singapore (CRISP-NUS) were able to identify unusual wave patterns off the coast of Thailand on 26 December 2004 (CRISP-NUS, 2005). Using the satellite data, NUS scientists noticed a series of unusually fast moving water patterns just off the Thai coastline. In the following hours and days, the reasons for those unusual wave patterns became clear. A further series of high-resolution satellite images (including processed geographical information systems data) shows the physical devastation of Katchall Island in India's Nicobar group (see Figure 1) (CRISP-NUS, 2005).

Despite the availability of these advanced technological tools, warning information was not successfully managed and transmitted to the relevant government authorities. One could speculate that even if information had reached the appropriate people, the question of available and reliable communications to the effected population remains unanswered. David Ovadia, Head of British Geological Survey International outlined the problem: It is one thing knowing a tsunami is coming and another to warn the population in time. The real problem is what to do after the red light, which is an infrastructure problem (Knight, 2005). The government officials would have required the appropriate warning information infrastructure to alert the local population of the impending disaster. This type of communications and broadcast information system infrastructure does not exist in the effected countries, and shows a distinct weakness in government information systems and management processes.

The requirement for educating people and disseminating information on the dangers of earthquakes and tsunamis was further reinforced in the light of the government information management failures. A good example is the actions of hundreds of Sri Lankan children who were swept away while combing the receding shoreline for fish (i.e. the water line recedes appreciably just prior to a tsunami strike following an earthquake). Earthquake and tsunami education might have alerted the children and their parents to the impending danger posed by the incoming walls of water (Wikipedia, 2005). In an example of relevant education and information saving lives, one British family fled northern Phuket in Thailand after their ten-year-old daughter remembered a geography lesson that explained how the beach line recedes prior to a tsunami wave strike. In this case, people's understanding of geological events and the physical warning information helped to save lives that would otherwise have been lost (Wikipedia, 2005).

The information and communication technology systems that can detect and warn people of an impending tsunami currently exist and are deployed in other ocean basins around the globe. It can be argued that humans, including the intrinsic understanding of earthquakes and tsunami events, form the weakest link in the tsunami warning information system. Whether it is the tangled government bureaucracies of countries like India or Indonesia, or the lack of sanctioned government information system infrastructure for disaster warnings and widespread communications, information sharing and dissemination will continue to be a problem in the immediate term. Any future government information systems that will be developed for the issuing of tsunami warnings should carefully consider the human and technological aspects of the problem. Teng-Fong Wong, a geophysicist from the State University of New York in Stony Brook, put the two parts of the problem into perspective: It is a people problem not a technology problem. Governments just have to co-operate (Vergano, 2004).

The regional governments in the tsunami impact zone have now taken steps to establish a proper early warning information system similar to that deployed in the Pacific Ocean. Phil McFadden, the Chief Scientist at Geoscience Australia, has been commissioned by the Australian government to design an early warning system for the Indian Ocean. Early designs suggest the system could consist of 30 seismographs to detect earthquakes, ten tidal gauges, and six DART buoys at a total estimated cost of A$20 million (Knight, 2005). Additionally, the US government has announced plans for an improved tsunami detection and warning system. The expanded system will form part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and will see 32 new DART buoys deployed at a total cost of $37.5 million during 2005-2006 (NOAA, 2005). If implemented properly, this approach should address the technical side of the government information system problem.

The human side of the tsunami warning problem is something that may prove far more challenging to solve. For example, government to government information sharing protocols must be established in order to maintain warning information velocity. One of the biggest lessons learned from this natural disaster is that international government agencies have not worked hard enough to establish clear high velocity communication links. This inter-government communication work must be expedited in the immediate term. Charles McCreery, Director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, gave his account of the information transfer difficulties and the urgent need for future work: We wanted to try and do something, but without a plan in place then, it was not an effective way to issue a warning, or to have it acted on. One of the things that was running through my mind is just that our international group has in many past meetings had discussions about what can be done for other ocean basins (to issue warnings of impending tsunamis). And I guess I was wishing in retrospect that more progress had been made in that area (Kayal and Wald, 2004).

Tightly coupled to the need for improved government information sharing is the requirement for disaster management and evacuation plans. The challenge in protecting people from earthquake and tsunami disasters is “getting the word out” and “getting people to abandon their homes and cities at a moment's notice” (Coren, 2005). Jeff LaDouce of the US NOAA emphasised that, given the speed of a tsunami, warnings are of little use without firm population evacuation plans: Even if you give the tourists resorts in Thailand a half-hour's notice, it is no easy matter to evacuate swaths of coastland. You have to plan and train people. And then do it all over again (Vergano, 2004). Harold Mofjeld, a senior scientist within the NOAA tsunami research program, also highlighted the importance of timely tsunami warnings when the waves travel at over 750 kilometres per hour over deep water: The basic criteria is to get a warning out within 10 and 20 minutes (Coren, 2005).

In a statement to government leaders, the Director of the US Geological Survey, Dr Charles Groat advised the US Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation that providing adequate warnings to people in areas like Hawaii was very difficult, let alone in less developed countries like those effected by the tsunami: The run-for-your-life business has to be communicated very quickly and very effectively and that is a challenge even in our country (Cable Network News, 2005). As a priority, national governments need to take an active role in establishing disaster plans for coastal and tourist resort areas. Emergency and warning infrastructure, such as robust and disaster-proof communications centres, evacuation sirens, sign-posted vehicle escape routes, and visible high ground shelters should form part of these future protective arrangements.

Public and community education on the dangers of seismic events also needs to be pursued with some urgency. For too long, complacency has seen Asiatic earthquake tremors go unnoticed with local people, foreign visitors, and tourists generally uninformed of the potential dangers and unconcerned for their personal safety. The world renowned US seismic expert and Robert P. Sharp Professor of Geology at the California Institute of Technology, Dr Kerry Sieh toured the Sumatra area some three weeks before the eruption distributing educational posters and warning information to locals that outlined the potential devastation that earthquakes and tsunamis can cause. Dr Sieh also lectured several government officials on the dangers posed by earthquakes all to no avail (Kayal and Wald, 2004). In this case, public education, information on earthquakes and tsunamis, and heeding expert opinion might have played a positive role in saving some of the lives that were lost.

In a stark reminder that Mother Nature does not discriminate on the basis of geographic or international boundaries, disaster-warning information should be looked on as an international asset with no pure sovereign value. As this tragedy has shown, Indian scientists learned an important lesson that seismic events can have far reaching effects well outside the event's national boundaries (Channel News Asia International, 2004; Chadda, 2005). This form of seismic data and information is typically collected and shared by government agencies on a co-operative international basis, and accordingly should be classified as information belonging to the broader global community. This is an important issue for all governments around the world not just those directly impacted by the Asian tsunami.