Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Tsunami Leaves Death and Destruction in Southeast Asia
Aired December 28, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Raging floodwaters leave behind devastation and despair in Asia. Straight ahead on DAYBREAK, we'll take you to the heart of the tsunami disaster.
Also, the world's most wanted terrorist is apparently speaking up again. This time, he's talking to the Iraqi people.
And what went wrong over the holiday travel weekend? The government wants to know.
It is Tuesday, December 28.
You are watching DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
Now in the news, the United Nations says the tsunami disaster could easily become the world's largest and most expensive relief effort. More than 26,000 people are now confirmed dead and some fear that number might double before it's over.
In Ukraine, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko maintains a commanding lead, with nearly all of the votes counted. He's claiming victory. But his opponent refuses to concede. He's vowing to appeal the election results to the supreme court.
A woman charged in a gruesome crime makes an initial court appearance in Missouri today. Lisa Montgomery is accused of strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb.
Federal charges have now been filed against five Pennsylvania men accused of selling free drug samples to patients. The indictment says three pharmacists and two doctors made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the drug scheme.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: We are learning more by the hour about the scope of the tsunami disaster in Asia and the huge challenge of recovery efforts ahead. Almost half of the 26,000 people who died were in Sri Lanka. Mourners there are digging graves with their bare hands this morning.
We go to CNN's Satinder Bindra.
He's on the phone now from the southern coastal city of Galle -- hello, Satinder.
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
The situation here is still quite precarious. Lots of dead bodies are still being pulled out. I've just come back from one hospital, where some 800 bodies have been brought in the past two days. At another neighboring hospital here, health officials telling me 1,000 bodies were brought there. So 1,800 bodies in two hospitals alone. These hospitals are so swamped that they say they can't deal with any more dead bodies. Hundreds of these dead bodies are now unidentified and health officials are organizing mass burials.
A relief effort, too, is underway. Several Indian helicopters are now ferrying supplies to this area. The great and urgent need, Carol, is for safe drinking water because the seawater, when it rushed in, contaminated the local drinking water supply. As we speak, a cleanup operation is being organized here. Heavy machinery is being used to clean out a lot of heavy debris. The force of these waves, Carol, was so intense, so intense that several busses got swept onto roofs, large concrete homes are completely smashed, ships have sunk in the harbor here.
So from the air, this city still looks like a bombed out zone, almost. And right at the moment, many residents still nervous, still scared. They're still bracing for possibly more killer waves.
COSTELLO: Satinder Bindra reporting live from Galle in Sri Lanka this morning.
Survivors of the killer tsunami are telling harrowing tales of their experiences.
We bring you one account now from "Washington Post" reporter Michael Dobbs.
He was in Sri Lanka when all hell broke loose.
MICHAEL DOBBS, "WASHINGTON POST" REPORTER: My brother suddenly told me that something was very wrong with the sea and I should come in immediately. At first I didn't realize what was happening, but then I saw that the sea was rising very rapidly and we were being pushed into shore. And I've never seen the sea rise as quickly as this, about 15 feet in the space of about a minute.
We were pushed into the shore. We grabbed hold of a couple of catamarans that were moored to the seashore and the water passed over us and passed over the coastal road.
COSTELLO: Do you want to hear more? You saw the "Washington Post" Web site up there, washingtonpost.com. The rest of Michael Dobbs' story is there online. Here's another survivor's story that's attracted world media attention. This little boy, you're going to see him in just a second, he was rescued and taken to a hospital in Phuket, Thailand. And for a time there, no one could figure out his name or nationality. But he was finally identified within an hour of his being pictured online. It turns out he's a 2-year-old Swede. He's been reunited with his grandmother at the hospital. His father and grandfather are being treated at another hospital and sadly this morning his mother is still missing.
We're asking anyone who experienced the earthquake or resulting tsunamis to e-mail us with their thoughts and experiences. The address is tsunami@cnn.com. That's tsunami@cnn.com. And you can read more survivors' accounts of the disaster on cnn.com.
You can head to cnn.com, too, for more first hand accounts from survivors, images of the quake aftermath and explanations of how tsunamis form. And if you want to help, we've got all that information on our Web site, too. Here are some organizations you can contact.
There you go. They're on cnn.com if you don't have a pencil to write them down handy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I paused because I wanted you to hear some of the sounds of this video. This is just a taste of what tourists in Southeast Asia went through over the weekend. This is amateur video of a rising wall of water. As you can see, it's flooding a resort hotel in Sri Lanka. These pictures were taken from the balcony on the third floor of a building nearby. And as you can see, the water swept away trees, furniture and, sadly, also people.
Even as we get new images into CNN showing those devastating tsunamis as they took place on Sunday, we continue to look ahead to the next few days, which are critical for survivors and relief workers. One of the top priorities -- secure the drinking water. Decomposing bodies and diseases like malaria and cholera could cause even more deaths in the next few days. And then there's the issue of providing food to the relief camps that have been set up and thousands of homeless families who need the most basic assistance, medical supplies and a clean place to use the bathroom.
The United Nations says this could be the costliest relief effort in history.
The cleanup has begun in parts of Indonesia, while aid comes into those -- comes in to help those left homeless by the tsunamis. Search and rescue crews have also begun looking for the thousands of people still missing.
For the latest, we join CNN's Mike Chinoy, who's in Aceh, Indonesia -- hello, Mike.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol. Well, some of the people you can see behind me are among the countless thousands here in the northernmost tip of Indonesia who have lost everything. They are simply camped out in the streets, very short of food and water, desperately concerned about the fate of their loved ones.
The death toll is still rising. There are no precise figures. A short time ago, I had a look at a mass grave about 10 minutes' drive from where I'm standing now. Bulldozers have dug a huge pit in a big open field. There were about 1,000 bodies just piled on top of each other and trucks were coming in as we were standing there, bringing more bodies. They've run out of body bags. Many of these bodies are sprawled in grotesque positions, bloated by the tropical heat. The bulldozers simply shoving those bodies into this enormous pit and then covering them over. And the workers involved in this said that those bodies were only a fraction of the total who are believed to have died here.
The relief effort has still been very slow in getting underway. Many people are complaining about that. Downtown, in the center of Banga, Aceh, the main town here, there are still bodies littering the streets. Many buildings destroyed. All basic facilities essentially not functioning. People in a desperate way and a lot of concern about folks in the more remote, rural areas along the western coast in this part of Indonesia. Many, many people living in that area closest to where the epicenter of the quake was and communications are so bad, we just have no news about what's happened to them -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You know, Mike, I was noticing from the video that you sent to us that some medical care is going on right in the middle of the street.
Are there enough hospitals there? What's being done with all of the people that must be injured from this?
CHINOY: Well, it's a real crisis. There's a desperate shortage of medical personnel. There's not enough medicine. There's not enough drinking water. There's a lot of concern that the water supply here will have been contaminated by all of the dead bodies that have been washed up that are dotted around the streets and around the field.
The Indonesian government and military are trying to pull together a relief effort. The president of Indonesia said that this part of the country, which has largely been closed off to foreigners because the Indonesian Army has been fighting a very bloody war with separatist rebels. But the government now is planning to open this up so international relief agencies should be able to set up operations on the ground. They've lifted a ban on foreign reporters like us coming here.
So the government is moving, but it's very slow. And meanwhile a lot of people are suffering -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Mike Chinoy live in Indonesia this morning.
Thank you.
Your news, money, weather and sports.
It's 6:13 Eastern.
Here's what's all new this morning.
Ukraine's prime minister will not concede the presidential election and says he plans to appeal the results to the supreme court. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has a commanding lead, with almost all of the votes counted now.
In money news, federal regulators are investigating the compensation package owed to former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines. Raines is due to, get this, he's due to make $114,000 a month for the duration of his life. He resigned a week ago after an investigation turned up accounting irregularities.
In culture, Liza Minelli has been hospitalized after falling out of bed. "People" magazine reports that the 58-year-old entertainer knocked herself unconscious when she rolled out of bed in the middle of the night.
In sports, the New York Yankees are being billed more than $25 million for baseball's luxury tax. That's based on a payroll of nearly $190 million last season. The Red Sox and the Angels are the only other teams that have to pay the tax for payrolls over $120.5 million.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: Those are the latest headlines this morning.
The tsunami disaster hits home. A Huntsville, Alabama city council member says he is lucky to be alive. We'll tell you his story after the break.
And who should be held responsible for the airline snafu over Christmas? We will debate that issue later on DAYBREAK.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Many people saw the power of tsunamis up close and survived. They referred to the scene as a wall of water rushing over everything and they say they are lucky to be alive.
Let's take a look at some of the more dramatic pictures and descriptions from the tsunami disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's coming again! Coming again!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A big wave.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back off!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran into our beachfront bungalow to look for a camera. I guess I spent a minute looking for it and I couldn't find it. And I came back out again and the guy who owns the hotel was screaming at people to get off the beach. And I looked out to sea and I guess at this stage it was about 100 yards, maybe 200 yards off the beach, this, this wall of water heading our way.
And my wife screamed to me. She grabbed our daughter Elizabeth. And I looked frantically for my 5-year-old son Peter and he was, he was looking out to sea. He was mesmerized, hypnotized by the wall of water that was heading our way.
So I just sprinted for the boy and I grabbed him. And my wife yelled to me to get into the bungalow, but I knew that Peter and I wouldn't make it. So we headed at right angles from the wave. And I just ran as hard as I could.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Having stood in the water, literally within two seconds from ankle height it came to shoulder height. You usually imagine, you know, tidal waves are going to much like you see in the movies, a big crest and wave. The waves that hit Phuket certainly, in the reports I've heard from other resorts, they all came in very hard and fast. It was a bit like watching a bath run to the top.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I looked behind and I could see the wall of water coming toward us. And eventually when we were, I suppose, 25 yards, 50 yards from the beach, the wave caught up with myself and Peter. And it washed us, I guess, another 50 yards into a mangrove swamp. We were very lucky not to be hit by all the debris that there was, the wave carried with it. I mean it was carrying small boats with it. It was carrying logs, masonry. It was a terrifying experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The death toll now stands at 26,000, a number that is certain to go much higher.
Many Americans were among those caught up in the tsunami disaster. A Huntsville, Alabama city council member says he is lucky to be alive. Glen Watson was in the resort town of Phuket, Thailand when the waves hit. He says that some of his friends were swept away, but he managed to dive into the rushing waters to save a little boy.
Members of a Kansas family consider themselves lucky to have heard from their daughter in Thailand. Karen Hanneman is a scuba instructor at a vacation resort and was able to get shelter before it was too late. Her house in a little town there is now being used as a makeshift hospital for the injured in the area. A Tampa woman has not been so lucky. Edna Rainey hasn't heard from her son since Friday. He called last week to tell her he was heading to the resort beaches in Thailand. The tsunamis killed hundreds among those same beachfronts.
You know, twice this month we've heard from Osama bin Laden. How come nobody can catch him? We'll take a look after the break.
Plus, more on the recovery efforts in Asia after the tsunami disaster over the weekend.
DAYBREAK will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Good morning to you.
Welcome to the last half hour of DAYBREAK.
From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
Now in the news, the international community is scrambling to help those countries devastated by killer tsunamis. Right now the death toll stands at 26,000 and bodies are still being found. Most of the dead are in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India. We'll bring you several live reports in just a few minutes.
A suicide bomber blows up a car in a Baghdad neighborhood, wounding five Iraqi civilians. Iraqi police say the bomber was targeting Iraqi National Guard troops near a fuel station in the area. The bomber was killed in the blast.
In Ukraine, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko maintains a commanding lead, with nearly all of the votes counted. He's claiming victory. But his opponent refuses to concede. He's vowing to appeal the election results to the supreme court.
And the woman accused of strangling a pregnant woman and then cutting the baby from the womb has a court date today. Lisa Montgomery will make an initial appearance before a federal judge in Missouri.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: You know, on cnn.com, we've been asking people who suffered through the tsunamis to e-mail us with their stories and we'd like to read some of them to you right now because, oh, just some of them are so emotional. Like this one. This is from Sharone DeSilva (ph), from Wisconsin, actually. He say: "My father, Ray DeSilva, witnessed the tsunami in Sri Lanka. He and his brother were going to buy fish from the fishermen near the sea. On his way he noticed that the sea had become still and was starting to go inwards. He knew something was wrong, but never expected this disaster. It was a warm day with brilliant sunshine. He said that people were curious and most of the children had wandered into the sea to see what was happening and then suddenly people were screaming and running toward land."
And, you know, Chad, so many children died in this disaster just because of that.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: It looked so strange to see the water level so low and then suddenly you see this big wall of water and you stand there mesmerized by it and then it's too late to get away.
MYERS: You can see the same phenomenon on any beach, East Coast or West Coast. Before one of the larger waves will come in, regular waves, the water will go out and you'll see all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and it goes out a little bit. And then the waves come back in.
Well, think about the wave exponentially, let's say 30, 50 feet higher than that. The wave goes out first, so the water goes out first, and then the wave rolls on top of what was there, which is obviously the sand and the dirt.
What I was talking about earlier -- and I think I have a couple of seconds here to talk about it -- we had a level seven in San Francisco. Remember that one during the World Series? We had a nine...
COSTELLO: Earthquake, you mean.
MYERS: An earthquake, 7.0. This is a 9.0. You think, oh, that's two times -- wrong -- two times bigger. No. Between seven and eight, that is 10 times bigger. Between eight and nine, that's another 10 times bigger. So between 7.0 and a 9.0 there's 100 times more power than in that earthquake that we saw during the World Series. A hundred times, Carol.
COSTELLO: That's just unbelievable.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 28, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Raging floodwaters leave behind devastation and despair in Asia. Straight ahead on DAYBREAK, we'll take you to the heart of the tsunami disaster.
Also, the world's most wanted terrorist is apparently speaking up again. This time, he's talking to the Iraqi people.
And what went wrong over the holiday travel weekend? The government wants to know.
It is Tuesday, December 28.
You are watching DAYBREAK.
And good morning to you.
From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
Now in the news, the United Nations says the tsunami disaster could easily become the world's largest and most expensive relief effort. More than 26,000 people are now confirmed dead and some fear that number might double before it's over.
In Ukraine, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko maintains a commanding lead, with nearly all of the votes counted. He's claiming victory. But his opponent refuses to concede. He's vowing to appeal the election results to the supreme court.
A woman charged in a gruesome crime makes an initial court appearance in Missouri today. Lisa Montgomery is accused of strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb.
Federal charges have now been filed against five Pennsylvania men accused of selling free drug samples to patients. The indictment says three pharmacists and two doctors made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the drug scheme.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: We are learning more by the hour about the scope of the tsunami disaster in Asia and the huge challenge of recovery efforts ahead. Almost half of the 26,000 people who died were in Sri Lanka. Mourners there are digging graves with their bare hands this morning.
We go to CNN's Satinder Bindra.
He's on the phone now from the southern coastal city of Galle -- hello, Satinder.
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
The situation here is still quite precarious. Lots of dead bodies are still being pulled out. I've just come back from one hospital, where some 800 bodies have been brought in the past two days. At another neighboring hospital here, health officials telling me 1,000 bodies were brought there. So 1,800 bodies in two hospitals alone. These hospitals are so swamped that they say they can't deal with any more dead bodies. Hundreds of these dead bodies are now unidentified and health officials are organizing mass burials.
A relief effort, too, is underway. Several Indian helicopters are now ferrying supplies to this area. The great and urgent need, Carol, is for safe drinking water because the seawater, when it rushed in, contaminated the local drinking water supply. As we speak, a cleanup operation is being organized here. Heavy machinery is being used to clean out a lot of heavy debris. The force of these waves, Carol, was so intense, so intense that several busses got swept onto roofs, large concrete homes are completely smashed, ships have sunk in the harbor here.
So from the air, this city still looks like a bombed out zone, almost. And right at the moment, many residents still nervous, still scared. They're still bracing for possibly more killer waves.
COSTELLO: Satinder Bindra reporting live from Galle in Sri Lanka this morning.
Survivors of the killer tsunami are telling harrowing tales of their experiences.
We bring you one account now from "Washington Post" reporter Michael Dobbs.
He was in Sri Lanka when all hell broke loose.
MICHAEL DOBBS, "WASHINGTON POST" REPORTER: My brother suddenly told me that something was very wrong with the sea and I should come in immediately. At first I didn't realize what was happening, but then I saw that the sea was rising very rapidly and we were being pushed into shore. And I've never seen the sea rise as quickly as this, about 15 feet in the space of about a minute.
We were pushed into the shore. We grabbed hold of a couple of catamarans that were moored to the seashore and the water passed over us and passed over the coastal road.
COSTELLO: Do you want to hear more? You saw the "Washington Post" Web site up there, washingtonpost.com. The rest of Michael Dobbs' story is there online. Here's another survivor's story that's attracted world media attention. This little boy, you're going to see him in just a second, he was rescued and taken to a hospital in Phuket, Thailand. And for a time there, no one could figure out his name or nationality. But he was finally identified within an hour of his being pictured online. It turns out he's a 2-year-old Swede. He's been reunited with his grandmother at the hospital. His father and grandfather are being treated at another hospital and sadly this morning his mother is still missing.
We're asking anyone who experienced the earthquake or resulting tsunamis to e-mail us with their thoughts and experiences. The address is tsunami@cnn.com. That's tsunami@cnn.com. And you can read more survivors' accounts of the disaster on cnn.com.
You can head to cnn.com, too, for more first hand accounts from survivors, images of the quake aftermath and explanations of how tsunamis form. And if you want to help, we've got all that information on our Web site, too. Here are some organizations you can contact.
There you go. They're on cnn.com if you don't have a pencil to write them down handy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I paused because I wanted you to hear some of the sounds of this video. This is just a taste of what tourists in Southeast Asia went through over the weekend. This is amateur video of a rising wall of water. As you can see, it's flooding a resort hotel in Sri Lanka. These pictures were taken from the balcony on the third floor of a building nearby. And as you can see, the water swept away trees, furniture and, sadly, also people.
Even as we get new images into CNN showing those devastating tsunamis as they took place on Sunday, we continue to look ahead to the next few days, which are critical for survivors and relief workers. One of the top priorities -- secure the drinking water. Decomposing bodies and diseases like malaria and cholera could cause even more deaths in the next few days. And then there's the issue of providing food to the relief camps that have been set up and thousands of homeless families who need the most basic assistance, medical supplies and a clean place to use the bathroom.
The United Nations says this could be the costliest relief effort in history.
The cleanup has begun in parts of Indonesia, while aid comes into those -- comes in to help those left homeless by the tsunamis. Search and rescue crews have also begun looking for the thousands of people still missing.
For the latest, we join CNN's Mike Chinoy, who's in Aceh, Indonesia -- hello, Mike.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol. Well, some of the people you can see behind me are among the countless thousands here in the northernmost tip of Indonesia who have lost everything. They are simply camped out in the streets, very short of food and water, desperately concerned about the fate of their loved ones.
The death toll is still rising. There are no precise figures. A short time ago, I had a look at a mass grave about 10 minutes' drive from where I'm standing now. Bulldozers have dug a huge pit in a big open field. There were about 1,000 bodies just piled on top of each other and trucks were coming in as we were standing there, bringing more bodies. They've run out of body bags. Many of these bodies are sprawled in grotesque positions, bloated by the tropical heat. The bulldozers simply shoving those bodies into this enormous pit and then covering them over. And the workers involved in this said that those bodies were only a fraction of the total who are believed to have died here.
The relief effort has still been very slow in getting underway. Many people are complaining about that. Downtown, in the center of Banga, Aceh, the main town here, there are still bodies littering the streets. Many buildings destroyed. All basic facilities essentially not functioning. People in a desperate way and a lot of concern about folks in the more remote, rural areas along the western coast in this part of Indonesia. Many, many people living in that area closest to where the epicenter of the quake was and communications are so bad, we just have no news about what's happened to them -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You know, Mike, I was noticing from the video that you sent to us that some medical care is going on right in the middle of the street.
Are there enough hospitals there? What's being done with all of the people that must be injured from this?
CHINOY: Well, it's a real crisis. There's a desperate shortage of medical personnel. There's not enough medicine. There's not enough drinking water. There's a lot of concern that the water supply here will have been contaminated by all of the dead bodies that have been washed up that are dotted around the streets and around the field.
The Indonesian government and military are trying to pull together a relief effort. The president of Indonesia said that this part of the country, which has largely been closed off to foreigners because the Indonesian Army has been fighting a very bloody war with separatist rebels. But the government now is planning to open this up so international relief agencies should be able to set up operations on the ground. They've lifted a ban on foreign reporters like us coming here.
So the government is moving, but it's very slow. And meanwhile a lot of people are suffering -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Mike Chinoy live in Indonesia this morning.
Thank you.
Your news, money, weather and sports.
It's 6:13 Eastern.
Here's what's all new this morning.
Ukraine's prime minister will not concede the presidential election and says he plans to appeal the results to the supreme court. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has a commanding lead, with almost all of the votes counted now.
In money news, federal regulators are investigating the compensation package owed to former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines. Raines is due to, get this, he's due to make $114,000 a month for the duration of his life. He resigned a week ago after an investigation turned up accounting irregularities.
In culture, Liza Minelli has been hospitalized after falling out of bed. "People" magazine reports that the 58-year-old entertainer knocked herself unconscious when she rolled out of bed in the middle of the night.
In sports, the New York Yankees are being billed more than $25 million for baseball's luxury tax. That's based on a payroll of nearly $190 million last season. The Red Sox and the Angels are the only other teams that have to pay the tax for payrolls over $120.5 million.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: Those are the latest headlines this morning.
The tsunami disaster hits home. A Huntsville, Alabama city council member says he is lucky to be alive. We'll tell you his story after the break.
And who should be held responsible for the airline snafu over Christmas? We will debate that issue later on DAYBREAK.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Many people saw the power of tsunamis up close and survived. They referred to the scene as a wall of water rushing over everything and they say they are lucky to be alive.
Let's take a look at some of the more dramatic pictures and descriptions from the tsunami disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's coming again! Coming again!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A big wave.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back off!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran into our beachfront bungalow to look for a camera. I guess I spent a minute looking for it and I couldn't find it. And I came back out again and the guy who owns the hotel was screaming at people to get off the beach. And I looked out to sea and I guess at this stage it was about 100 yards, maybe 200 yards off the beach, this, this wall of water heading our way.
And my wife screamed to me. She grabbed our daughter Elizabeth. And I looked frantically for my 5-year-old son Peter and he was, he was looking out to sea. He was mesmerized, hypnotized by the wall of water that was heading our way.
So I just sprinted for the boy and I grabbed him. And my wife yelled to me to get into the bungalow, but I knew that Peter and I wouldn't make it. So we headed at right angles from the wave. And I just ran as hard as I could.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Having stood in the water, literally within two seconds from ankle height it came to shoulder height. You usually imagine, you know, tidal waves are going to much like you see in the movies, a big crest and wave. The waves that hit Phuket certainly, in the reports I've heard from other resorts, they all came in very hard and fast. It was a bit like watching a bath run to the top.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I looked behind and I could see the wall of water coming toward us. And eventually when we were, I suppose, 25 yards, 50 yards from the beach, the wave caught up with myself and Peter. And it washed us, I guess, another 50 yards into a mangrove swamp. We were very lucky not to be hit by all the debris that there was, the wave carried with it. I mean it was carrying small boats with it. It was carrying logs, masonry. It was a terrifying experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The death toll now stands at 26,000, a number that is certain to go much higher.
Many Americans were among those caught up in the tsunami disaster. A Huntsville, Alabama city council member says he is lucky to be alive. Glen Watson was in the resort town of Phuket, Thailand when the waves hit. He says that some of his friends were swept away, but he managed to dive into the rushing waters to save a little boy.
Members of a Kansas family consider themselves lucky to have heard from their daughter in Thailand. Karen Hanneman is a scuba instructor at a vacation resort and was able to get shelter before it was too late. Her house in a little town there is now being used as a makeshift hospital for the injured in the area. A Tampa woman has not been so lucky. Edna Rainey hasn't heard from her son since Friday. He called last week to tell her he was heading to the resort beaches in Thailand. The tsunamis killed hundreds among those same beachfronts.
You know, twice this month we've heard from Osama bin Laden. How come nobody can catch him? We'll take a look after the break.
Plus, more on the recovery efforts in Asia after the tsunami disaster over the weekend.
DAYBREAK will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Good morning to you.
Welcome to the last half hour of DAYBREAK.
From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
Now in the news, the international community is scrambling to help those countries devastated by killer tsunamis. Right now the death toll stands at 26,000 and bodies are still being found. Most of the dead are in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India. We'll bring you several live reports in just a few minutes.
A suicide bomber blows up a car in a Baghdad neighborhood, wounding five Iraqi civilians. Iraqi police say the bomber was targeting Iraqi National Guard troops near a fuel station in the area. The bomber was killed in the blast.
In Ukraine, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko maintains a commanding lead, with nearly all of the votes counted. He's claiming victory. But his opponent refuses to concede. He's vowing to appeal the election results to the supreme court.
And the woman accused of strangling a pregnant woman and then cutting the baby from the womb has a court date today. Lisa Montgomery will make an initial appearance before a federal judge in Missouri.
To the forecast center and Chad -- good morning.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: You know, on cnn.com, we've been asking people who suffered through the tsunamis to e-mail us with their stories and we'd like to read some of them to you right now because, oh, just some of them are so emotional. Like this one. This is from Sharone DeSilva (ph), from Wisconsin, actually. He say: "My father, Ray DeSilva, witnessed the tsunami in Sri Lanka. He and his brother were going to buy fish from the fishermen near the sea. On his way he noticed that the sea had become still and was starting to go inwards. He knew something was wrong, but never expected this disaster. It was a warm day with brilliant sunshine. He said that people were curious and most of the children had wandered into the sea to see what was happening and then suddenly people were screaming and running toward land."
And, you know, Chad, so many children died in this disaster just because of that.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: It looked so strange to see the water level so low and then suddenly you see this big wall of water and you stand there mesmerized by it and then it's too late to get away.
MYERS: You can see the same phenomenon on any beach, East Coast or West Coast. Before one of the larger waves will come in, regular waves, the water will go out and you'll see all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and it goes out a little bit. And then the waves come back in.
Well, think about the wave exponentially, let's say 30, 50 feet higher than that. The wave goes out first, so the water goes out first, and then the wave rolls on top of what was there, which is obviously the sand and the dirt.
What I was talking about earlier -- and I think I have a couple of seconds here to talk about it -- we had a level seven in San Francisco. Remember that one during the World Series? We had a nine...
COSTELLO: Earthquake, you mean.
MYERS: An earthquake, 7.0. This is a 9.0. You think, oh, that's two times -- wrong -- two times bigger. No. Between seven and eight, that is 10 times bigger. Between eight and nine, that's another 10 times bigger. So between 7.0 and a 9.0 there's 100 times more power than in that earthquake that we saw during the World Series. A hundred times, Carol.
COSTELLO: That's just unbelievable.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
