Less than three years after the December 2004 tsunami devastated the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and parts of Tamil Nadu, besides causing some damages in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, the Centre has put in place a tsunami warning centre at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad. The centre, which can detect earthquakes of a magnitude of more than six on the Richter scale, will receive data via satellite from six ocean buoys — four in the Bay of Bengal and two in the Arabian Sea — equipped with water pressure sensors to detect any rise in water levels. Six more back-up buoys will be ready in the next six months. 
INCOIS promises that the warning system comprises a real-time network of seismic stations, bottom pressure recorders (BPRs) and 30 tide gauges to detect tsunamigenic earthquakes and also monitor tsunamis. The Centre reportedly plans to increase the number of its tide gauges fivefold and more than triple its seismic stations from 51 to 170. The first of 17 new broadband seismic stations came online at Port Blair last May. The country plans to deploy up to 12 tsunameters –  Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys – and sea-floor sensors that detect pressure changes in the water column. Data will be fed into the Hyderabad centre. The scientists predict that the new tools, coupled with inundation models under development at the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa, should reduce the time required to assess the tsunami risk after an earthquake from 40 minutes to 10. Union Minister for Science & Technology Kapil Sibal has said the data will be shared with all the neighbouring countries.

At a meeting held under the aegies of various UN agencies in December 2005, it was agreed that in the Indian Ocean, there should be at least one, and probably up to three, sub-regional centres to process and disseminate tsunami warning advisories. In addition, there should be 27 national tsunami centres which should, besides passing on information, be able to put together a comprehensive response to the tsunami hazard in their territory. This implies emergency preparedness, legal and administrative frameworks, awareness campaigns and the development of civil defence to act in an emergency. A tsunami warning system is already in place in the Pacific Ocean. Such a centre for the Indian Ocean is needed if a disaster like the 2004 tsunami is to be averted.