Associated Press

Colombo, February 19:

Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga has appointed two retired judges to investigate whether officials ignored any early warnings about a tsunami threat following the December 26 Indian Ocean earthquake, a news report said today.

The former supreme court and appeal court judges will determine if the Meteorological Department and the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau received any warnings about a possible tsunami soon after the massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported.

The commission will also assess the adequacy of existing systems to receive warnings about potential natural disasters and to propose ways to obtain an improvised early warning system, the report said.

The Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, responsible for seismological data, was closed when the tsunami struck because it was a Sunday.

Sri Lanka has a seismological station in the central city of Kandy that is part of a global network that feeds information to the US Geological Survey. It does not generate independent data.

The tsunamis that swept across 11 nations in Asia and Africa killed at least 31,000 Sri Lankans and left one million people homeless.