The quake happened around 8:00am local time Sunday. The first wave arrived at Phuket (Thailand) and Penang (Malaysia) a few hours later, and later than that at Sri Lanka and Tamilnadu. There would have been sufficient time to mount an evacuation of sorts -- none of the countries have evacuation plans for such a contingency.
It does appear that the people at the Pacific Centre tried to call around, but embassies were closed for the holidays, and they had no other contacts. But did they call Washington? Australia was apparently informed. Were the local governments perhaps informed, but ignored the warnings for any number of misguided reasons?
As for contributions pledged, seems like the focus is on Phuket (Thailand) and Sri Lanka, both areas of western tourists -- sorry for the sour note.
While Tamilnadu, Sri Lanka, Phuket, the Andamans/Nicobar need assistance, both immediate and longer term, the worst hit area -- the provice of Acheh is north Sumatra -- needs it in spades and more. Current estimates are of around 80,000 deaths, but that's going to rise. The Indonesian government seems to have been spectacularly incompetent in managing the post-tsunami situation, with areas on the west coast -- directly facing the quake site -- not visited until Thursday. In those areas, whole villages have been completely flattened, disappeared. The provincial capital of Acheh is something like 1/3 destroyed. The province is also the site of a regional autonomy/separatist movement, and has been under martial law.
kj khoo