A West Albany graduate on a mission in India is reported to be safe following the tsunamis that struck one of the cities where he had been working.

Keith and Wendy Frome of Albany got the news Sunday that their son, Robert, a 21-year-old missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wasn't on the coast when the waves came ashore.

Robert is a 2002 graduate of West Albany High School. He had been working in the coastal city of Madras prior to the disaster.

"He flies around to different areas," Wendy Frome said this morning. "We talked to him on Christmas, and he was to be going to Delhi. But we've had no contact with him since."

She said the church headquarters in Salt Lake City had issued an e-mail that all missionaries in India were safe and accounted for. The Fromes plan to travel to India later in January to see their son.

"We're not calling yet - we don't want to tie up the phone lines - because we know he wasn't in Madras when it was hit," she said.

With over 55,000 missionaries scattered around the globe, the Mormon church has one office in Bangalore, an inland city of over 3 million people at the southern tip of India, about 1,200 miles south of the capital.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that sent tsunamis throughout the Indian Ocean Sunday has killed an estimated 24,000 people in the region, and the death toll continues to mount.

Madras, also called Chennai, is a city of 6 million people on India's east coast. India state officials have said at least 3,500 on India's east coast have lost their lives when waves hit the coast Sunday, washing away entire villages.

Dale Bills, a spokesman for the church reached this morning in Salt Lake City, said the church received news that all their missionaries were safe late Sunday.

"We're just grateful that our missionaries are safe, and we're working closely with relief agencies and local governments to learn how we might be helpful with humanitarian aid," Bills said.