“Excerpt from Colombo Times”:

Disclaimer : I don’t know for sure if this one is for real. But I’d be damned if it was for real. I got this from a person who said this appeared in the Colombo Times.

On 26th Dec ’04 early morning, several hours before the catastrophe happened, Honolulu Tsunami Monitoring Center had tried calling the Sri Lankan Meteorological Department Monitoring Centers in Palekelle and Colombo but failed. They got in touch with Presidents’ office. However it was informed that she was out of the island on a private vacation.

Finally they called the Prime Minister’s secretariat, but he 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 the Prime Minister that there’s a Tsunami coming from Indonesia.

On Prime Minister’s return, the operator told him about the call, said TSunami from Indonesia is arriving in 2 hrs. Prime minister promptly took action to send a delegation to Katunayake Airport with a name board ‘Welcome Mr. T. Sunami – Indonesia.’