Authorities warned on 4 April of potential attacks, Sri Lankan minister says – as it happened

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Senaratne has also announced that the victims’ families and the injured will receive government compensation.

“Today we have decided as a cabinet that we shall compensate all the people who died. 100,000 rupees for their funeral expenses,” he said.

The injured will also receive payments, and the bombed churches will be repaired with government funds. “This will start very soon,” he said. “We are responsible, we are very sorry and we are doing our best to apologise to everybody.”

To recap: the health minister said authorities were warned two weeks before the attacks, and had the names of attackers, but this information was not shared with prime minister Wickremesinghe.

The president, Maithripala Sirisena, has the portfolio of defence.

“This is the only country where when the prime minister summons the security council they don’t assemble,” minister Seranatne said. “We are not trying to evade responsibility but these are the facts. We were surprised to see these reports.”

“We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group of people who were confined to this country. There was an international network without which these attacks could not have succeeded.”

National security and intelligence falls under the portfolio of president Maithripala Sirisena, and tensions between him and prime minister Wickremesinghe are high. In October last year, Sirisena attempted to sack Wickremesinghe as prime minster, triggering a constitutional crisis.

“This is the only country where when the prime minister summons the security council they don’t assemble,” Seranatne said. “Despite these revelations about security, we couldn’t avert these attacks.”

“We are not trying to evade responsibility but these are the facts. We were surprised to see these reports.”

Sri Lankan cabinet spokesman, Rajitha Senaratne, is addressing media in Colombo.

“On the 4th of April, 14 days before these incidents occurred we had been informed about these incidents,” he says.

Earlier, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had said police had been warned at least ten days ago.

“On the 9th of April, the chief of national intelligence wrote a letter and in this letter many of the names of the members of the terrorist organisation were written down,” Senaratne said. “The prime minister was not informed by these letters and revelations”.

Earlier, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they had not received any reports of any Australians killed.

At 4.40pm in Melbourne, Morrison held a snap press conference to announce the government had received new information.

“We have further information that has come through from our post, sadly two Australians have been killed as part of these terror attacks,” he said.

“[They were] members of the same family. They were living in Sri Lanka at the time.”

Two other Australians were injured, Morrison said. One is a woman in her mid-50s and the other a woman in her mid-to-late-20s. Both are in a stable condition. One is being treated for shrapnel wounds, and one is being treated for a broken leg.

Morrison said one of the deceased, and both injured women, were dual nationals. The two deceased were “living in Sri Lanka with their families”, Morrison said. “It’s just a terribly sad day”.

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has told media that two Australians have died.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry has confirmed at least 37 foreign citizens are among the dead. Three Indian citizens, three British and two Turkish citizens were confirmed by the department, AFP reports. There are also 25 unidentified bodies “believed to be of foreigners,” the ministry said.

The US state department has warned travellers to “exercise increased caution” in their latest travel advisory, saying “terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka.”

“Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs [and] markets”, it says.

The UK foreign office says “terrorists are likely to carry out attacks in Sri Lanka” in their latest advice.