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CNN Live At Daybreak

Relief Efforts; Tsunami Disaster; Relative Anxiety; Remote Islands; The Looming Threat

Aired December 29, 2004 - 05:30   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.


DOUGLAS K. ALLEN, AMERICAN RED CROSS: ... totally affected by this. We would be buying the culturally accepted food for Indonesians, which they would eat.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Douglas Allen, Director of the International Disaster Response Unit at the American Red Cross. Thank you for joining DAYBREAK so early in the morning. We appreciate it.

ALLEN: Thank you for your time.

COSTELLO: Here's what's all new in the next half-hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANIKA RANASINGHE, SEARCHING FOR RELATIVES: We're here and we're OK. And just sending money and sending -- nothing we can do seems enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Sadness and fear gripped family members awaiting word on their loved ones. We'll hear from relatives in the United States just ahead.

And CNN.com is posting the appeals of families who are desperately searching for loved ones. Just go to CNN.com/quake to read their compelling stories or to post your own entry.

You are watching DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning to you, welcome to the second half- hour of DAYBREAK. From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.

Now in the News.

Indonesia surpasses Sri Lanka for the number of people killed in the tsunami disaster. Within the past few minutes, the death toll has gone up yet again. It now exceeds 67,000 people and is expected to keep climbing. Hundreds of thousands of people still missing. The U.S. is running its relief effort from a military base in Thailand.

In the meantime, President Bush is expected to talk about the tsunami disaster for the first time in public this morning. The president has been monitoring the situation from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

At least 20 people are dead in Baghdad this morning after Iraqi police were lured into a booby-trapped house. An Interior Ministry official says the officers were responding to an anonymous call.

And more heavy rains and floods are in store for California this morning. A slow-moving storm roared into the state on Monday, flooding homes and roads and triggering a rockslide. Three deaths linked to the weather now.

Is it over there -- Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Not even close, Carol. No, no, no, that was just round one. This is round two and then three. Already five inches of rain and more in L.A., and this is a dangerous situation. There's going to be an awful lot of flooding and more mudslides, especially in those burn areas. We could get another three to four inches of rain today on top of the five to six yesterday. And, obviously, the folks don't need that. It's all saturated out there.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: All right, thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: All right.

COSTELLO: The search for missing people continues throughout those resort areas in Thailand. Some of the smaller islands in the area were completely swallowed up by the giant waves.

More now from Thailand, we're joined live by Aneesh Raman.

Hello -- Aneesh.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.

We are on the coastal province of Phang Nga in southern mainland Thailand. Just within the hour, the death toll now confirmed here alone at over 1,000 people. It makes up about 60 percent of the total death toll in Thailand from those devastating waves. Bodies continue to be pulled out from the massive destruction and debris that exists on this coastline behind me. Just within the past few hours, some four to six bodies have been pulled out.

Carol, we've been told by local people here that 24 hours ago we couldn't have even stood here, the stench from the corpses was just that strong. It does give you, though, a sense of how quickly things can start to stabilize. The situation here, while still littered with debris, the corpses are gone, they are being put in sanitary plastic wraps to prevent disease, and it's starting to stabilize. Rescue and relief efforts and officials hope that they can do the same as they move further inland.

The biggest concern, Carol, though, is over 4,000 people remain missing. We are now well over three days after those waves came crashing down and the hope of finding any or all of them alive is dwindling fast -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Aneesh, I wanted to ask you about this, the U.S. is running its relief efforts out of Thailand. Any sense of their presence right now?

RAMAN: Out here, not really. We're pretty far out into the destruction area. The only relief efforts we see are motorcades. Police guarded -- not guarded, escorted vehicles coming in with water, with coffins, with plastic sheets to wrap the bodies with. I'm sure you know further into the central areas it's felt. But the relief effort really just starting to now get to the areas that were perhaps most affected.

You think of these tsunami waves, they drag back out with them debris and then they come roaring back with buses, with cars. So the destruction here, especially a flat land area without much infrastructure to mitigate the force of the waves, could go very far inland -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Aneesh Raman, reporting live from Thailand this morning, thank you.

We want to get an idea of just how the UNICEF is tackling this enormous aid effort. For that we go live to Jakarta, Indonesia and UNICEF's John Budd.

Good morning -- John. John, are you there?

We lost John from UNICEF. We'll try to get it...

JOHN BUDD, UNICEF: No, no, I'm here. I'm here.

COSTELLO: You're there -- John.

BUDD: Yes.

COSTELLO: Good, I'm glad, because I think people need to hear this part of the story as well. Tell me about your efforts right now.

BUDD: The situation is now determined to be a lot more serious than we had initially anticipated, so our efforts are becoming increasingly hard, I've got to admit. We have a situation now where we have officially over 27,000 dead, but we believe the figure is going to be closer to 40,000.

Four point five million people are affected in 21 districts. We've got 60 percent of the provincial capital of Bandaraches (ph) being destroyed. And people without shelter, our count, are about 500,000, 100,000 houses have been lost. So the scale of the disaster is absolutely mammoth, and we need all the help we can get.

COSTELLO: So where do you start -- John?

BUDD: Well we have already started. We will have emergency medical kits, should be in the district by I guess this weekend. But even there it's difficult to assess how we're actually going to get them to the 200,000 people we've identified that desperately need them because there is no fuel in the province. I mean I'll give you an example, the ambulances, they only have rationed to five liters of petrol per day. So it is a really serious situation.

So what we're going to have to do is get it into a provincial city called Maydam (ph), which is just to the south of the disaster area, and then truck it in. And hope for the best that we can identify in the next three to four days a way in which we can get that emergency health equipment to as many of those 500,000 who are without shelter.

COSTELLO: We want to talk specifically now about the children. We've heard so many stories of so many children dying and also children who have lost their parents, can't find them, are wandering around with signs on their chests. What have you seen?

BUDD: Well I haven't seen personally what's been happening up there, so I can't tell you, but we do know that that is the case. We understand that is the case, and UNICEF is sending people up there on Monday with the specific mission to start the tracking process of getting children who are separated from their parents back to their parents. Or if we can't do that, at least identifying a place where they can be kept safely until the initial shock of identifying people has been found.

COSTELLO: Well how do you do that, because a lot of these children speak different languages, they're in shock, they're traumatized? Some of them can't even speak they're so in shock.

BUDD: No, I agree with you. I cannot emphasize how difficult this is going to be. The government infrastructure in the district has collapsed as well. Staff are not turning up to work. It is a terrible mess. And you know we can throw our hands up in the air, but honestly, we've just got to get on with the work and start from the very basis and work out from there.

COSTELLO: John Budd from UNICEF joining DAYBREAK this morning. Thank you so much, John, and for your efforts, too.

BUDD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: As people try to find their missing friends and relatives, CNN brings you their stories taking you Beyond the Soundbite in their own words.

An Evanston, Illinois family waits for any word on 33-year-old Ben Abels. He went missing in Thailand after a wave collapsed his bungalow at a tourist resort. Abels was staying with his companion, Libby North. She was seriously injured when their bungalow fell and crushed her arm and leg. Abels brother, David, says the family wants him back home one way or the other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID ABELS, BROTHER MISSING: We want to recover my brother, Ben, before the Thai authorities cremate him. We don't want a photo of my brother and an urn. We want his body. We want people to go look for him.

He has a tattoo on his left ankle on the inside. It might be on his right, but we think it's on his left, in the shape of a triangle. It's a small tattoo about an inch on each side. He has a birthmark, a distinct birthmark on the left cheek of his face. And we want as many people in the United States to start calling people in Phuket, you know, in Krabi, in Penang, everywhere there, anywhere in Thailand, just to go and just start looking for him.

And, you know, if he's alive, that's fantastic, but we want -- if he's not alive, we want to be able to bury him here in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Many families here in the States are still frantic for information on loved ones, as you just heard.

Mary Snow reports on one New York woman who is also awaiting word.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SH. RANASINGHE: I think it's driving us crazy that we're sitting here, like, when we're hungry, we get to eat something.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-four-year-old Shanika Ranasinghe's shock has turned into a desperate search for information about missing family members in Galle, Sri Lanka.

Her uncle is among the missing. Two other members of her extended family, a mother and her disabled daughter, did not survive when a roof collapsed over them. Her father struggles with words to describe the horror.

SARATH RANASINGHE, BROTHER IS MISSING: This is something that you don't want to wish for your worst enemy. I mean it's like -- it reminds me of biblical times, like flood in the bible times.

SNOW: Shanika is spending most of her waking hours trying to get information, mainly from the Internet.

SH. RANASINGHE: I just try to stay as occupied as possible, but, at a point, it kind of drives you crazy when that's -- what you're trying to do is just stay occupied.

SNOW: Part of the information she learned was that the harrowing pictures of a train swallowed by the sea hit close to home. Extended family members were on board.

SH. RANASINGHE: A human part of you feels so angry, because I'm sure you've heard like the lack of a warning system. Like, there is no reason a train should have been traveling down a coast.

SNOW: But the anger has also turned into action. Shanika and her sister are among members of her community's temple collecting everything from clothes to canned foods to medical supplies. And there's also a need for tools and a need for information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother is missing.

SNOW: This Buddhist priest at a nearby temple has been monitoring Sri Lankan broadcasting, trying to help link families with missing relatives.

PERCY NANAYAKKARA, TEMPLE MEMBER: This is sort of like a nerve center where all people contact.

SNOW: And they share grief.

SAMANI RANASINGHE, SEARCHING FOR RELATIVES: There's a sense of community and everybody is helping out. I know most of these people have work today and they're taking time off to help.

SNOW: These sisters are hoping to take time off to go to Sri Lanka themselves to deliver aid and help rebuild.

SH. RANASINGHE: A pair of hands, you know, sometimes is more valuable than any money. So, just to go and be close to them and, you know, not just my own family, like, there's nothing I wouldn't be willing to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That report from CNN's Mary Snow.

Sri Lanka was the second hardest hit country with more than 22,000 people dead.

Going to take a short break now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Help is on the way to those survivors of those huge tsunamis in Asia, but it's coming in slowly. There is an Indian warship now. It's carrying relief. It was spotted out in the ocean.

Mallika Kapur joins us live with more on that.

Mallika, what did you see?

MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

We've just returned from the main harbor here in Port Blair where we did see this Indian Navy warship coming into the harbor. It's come in from a small island called Hud Bay (ph), which is an island near the main Nicobar Island, an area that was very badly affected by the tsunami tidal waves.

Now this ship was carrying more than 200 survivors, people whose homes have been completely wiped away by the tsunami tidal wave. So about 200 people on board this Navy vessel. People of all ages. There were a lot of elderly people, a lot of young babies, people who couldn't walk, people who were obviously in shock, people who have been hurt.

The sailors doing a very good job of giving these people assistance as they came off the ship. The sailors rushing up to carry children on their shoulders, lifting up the elderly who weren't able to come off the ship. Huge crowds waiting outside the harbor, throngs of people. Over 100 people standing right outside the main gates of the harbor waiting to catch a glimpse of the ship, trying to see if they recognized any familiar faces on board this ship.

I met a lady who was standing outside weeping away. She was waiting to see if her husband had made it on the ship at all. She has no idea whether her husband has even survived the tidal waves that hit Hud Bay.

Also, earlier in the day, we spent some time at a refugee camp here in Port Blair, which is where all the survivors are being taken to. The situation there pretty grim. A lot of people crying, a lot of people in shock, a lot of people hurt. Local authorities and several non-governmental organizations doing the best they can to provide them with food and shelter.

One of the officials there was standing on a box by the road appealing to passersby, making announcements, requesting them to drop in, come in with bananas, biscuits, milk powder and offer any assistance they can to those who have been affected -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Mallika Kapur joining us live from the Andaman Islands in India. Thanks so much.

A catastrophic disaster that leaves the threat of disease in its wake. Straight ahead, our Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look at what victims face now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: They somehow lived to tell about the unimaginable walls of water, but now survivors of the tsunami disaster must defeat a new threat, one that some fear could claim just as many lives as the tidal waves.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Sri Lanka this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The biggest goal here in Sri Lanka is to ensure those who survive the tsunami stay living. Health officials warning tonight that as many people may die from disease in these tsunami devastated areas as died from the actual tsunami itself. And from what we've seen here on the ground in Sri Lanka, we'd have to agree.

You see the public health system here struggles in the best of times. Now, it seems practically non-existent. Makeshift morgues, burial sites, often overflowing with the gruesome sight of decomposing bodies. Hospitals without reliable electricity, running water or communication systems now treating everything from broken bones and infections to dehydration and heat stroke. But it's an epidemic of infectious diseases that worries doctors here most.

It's the water supply that now poses the biggest danger to those who survived the killer waves of water that swept ashore here Sunday. Water and food contaminated by human waste and saltwater from the sea can lead to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which can be fatal. Standing water from the flooding can attract mosquitoes, spawning outbreaks of malaria and Dengue fever. Those left homeless, those trying to survive on the streets also face the threat of respiratory illness from bacteria and viruses that quickly spread when unsanitary conditions exists.

Relief efforts now focus on water purification systems and distribution of bottled water being flown in by aid groups, quick burial of bodies and clean up of sewage and debris. The providing of safe and sanitary shelter to those who have been left homeless, as well as clean, temporary medical clinics to treat the sick, as well as the injured.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: One of the most daunting problems right now is getting clean water into the devastated areas. Our registered dietician, Lisa Drayer, will join us in the next hour of DAYBREAK to talk much more about that.

When the earth moves, so does everything else. New in the next hour of DAYBREAK, shock absorbers for skyscrapers and could they have prevented so much death and so much destruction in Asia? The answer is yes.

And does a new year mean new guidelines? Also next hour, a closer look at homeland security in 2005.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And before we head into our next hour, I want to tell you what's happening with the tsunami disaster. The death toll has now gone up three times, three times in just the last half-hour. It now exceeds 67,000 people, and that number is expected to grow. More than half the victims are from Indonesia.

President Bush is expected to talk about the disaster for the first time publicly. That will happen sometime this morning. Of course when it does, we'll take you there live.

I wanted to read some of the appeals on CNN.com, because we've been trying to help people locate their lost relatives over in Asia. And I just wanted to read you some of these in the hopes that you can help. This is all on CNN.com.

Here's one. My sister and her husband are on their honeymoon in Indonesia. Her name is Carla Salazar. His name is Michael Van der Ven. We haven't had any information about them since the earthquake. If somebody knows anything about them, please contact me and that's at vsalazar@invita.com.

And of course it's much easier if you go to the Web site to get these.

Let me read another one. I'm trying to contact my father and his wife, Hugh and Vera Crawford, staying in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Anyone with information, please e-mail me now.

I know that you pulled off some off of CNN.com, too, -- Chad.

MYERS: Carol, you have to realize that there's no information coming in or out of there. There's no Internet left. A lot of the power lines are down. You know there basically is no telephone, or for that matter, not, at that point, telegraph or Internet. So it's going to be hard for these loved ones to connect. Not saying that everybody here is still missing, you just can't get to them because there's no information coming out of there.

I'm looking for my aunt, Teresa Stone (ph), a Texas teacher teaching in Malaysia. She was on holiday in Sri Lanka with a fellow traveler when the tsunami hit. Both are now missing.

You can go to these on CNN.com. There are just lists and lists of them. So many people looking for loved ones.

COSTELLO: It's just heart wrenching.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: And you know I'm sure that loved ones are trying anything they can to find their family members and friends so they're posting these things everywhere.

MYERS: It may get down to ham radio operators being able to go across the oceans and talking to other ham radio operators and maybe even having to translate what the other ham radio operators are saying. You know just like back in the floods back in -- and Agnes. That was the only way to get in and out any information out of northeast Pennsylvania.

COSTELLO: Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes, anything you can do to help, please do, though, CNN.com.

The next hour of DAYBREAK begins right now.

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Aired December 29, 2004 - 05:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DOUGLAS K. ALLEN, AMERICAN RED CROSS: ... totally affected by this. We would be buying the culturally accepted food for Indonesians, which they would eat.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Douglas Allen, Director of the International Disaster Response Unit at the American Red Cross. Thank you for joining DAYBREAK so early in the morning. We appreciate it.

ALLEN: Thank you for your time.

COSTELLO: Here's what's all new in the next half-hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANIKA RANASINGHE, SEARCHING FOR RELATIVES: We're here and we're OK. And just sending money and sending -- nothing we can do seems enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Sadness and fear gripped family members awaiting word on their loved ones. We'll hear from relatives in the United States just ahead.

And CNN.com is posting the appeals of families who are desperately searching for loved ones. Just go to CNN.com/quake to read their compelling stories or to post your own entry.

You are watching DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning to you, welcome to the second half- hour of DAYBREAK. From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.

Now in the News.

Indonesia surpasses Sri Lanka for the number of people killed in the tsunami disaster. Within the past few minutes, the death toll has gone up yet again. It now exceeds 67,000 people and is expected to keep climbing. Hundreds of thousands of people still missing. The U.S. is running its relief effort from a military base in Thailand.

In the meantime, President Bush is expected to talk about the tsunami disaster for the first time in public this morning. The president has been monitoring the situation from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

At least 20 people are dead in Baghdad this morning after Iraqi police were lured into a booby-trapped house. An Interior Ministry official says the officers were responding to an anonymous call.

And more heavy rains and floods are in store for California this morning. A slow-moving storm roared into the state on Monday, flooding homes and roads and triggering a rockslide. Three deaths linked to the weather now.

Is it over there -- Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Not even close, Carol. No, no, no, that was just round one. This is round two and then three. Already five inches of rain and more in L.A., and this is a dangerous situation. There's going to be an awful lot of flooding and more mudslides, especially in those burn areas. We could get another three to four inches of rain today on top of the five to six yesterday. And, obviously, the folks don't need that. It's all saturated out there.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: All right, thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: All right.

COSTELLO: The search for missing people continues throughout those resort areas in Thailand. Some of the smaller islands in the area were completely swallowed up by the giant waves.

More now from Thailand, we're joined live by Aneesh Raman.

Hello -- Aneesh.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning to you.

We are on the coastal province of Phang Nga in southern mainland Thailand. Just within the hour, the death toll now confirmed here alone at over 1,000 people. It makes up about 60 percent of the total death toll in Thailand from those devastating waves. Bodies continue to be pulled out from the massive destruction and debris that exists on this coastline behind me. Just within the past few hours, some four to six bodies have been pulled out.

Carol, we've been told by local people here that 24 hours ago we couldn't have even stood here, the stench from the corpses was just that strong. It does give you, though, a sense of how quickly things can start to stabilize. The situation here, while still littered with debris, the corpses are gone, they are being put in sanitary plastic wraps to prevent disease, and it's starting to stabilize. Rescue and relief efforts and officials hope that they can do the same as they move further inland.

The biggest concern, Carol, though, is over 4,000 people remain missing. We are now well over three days after those waves came crashing down and the hope of finding any or all of them alive is dwindling fast -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Aneesh, I wanted to ask you about this, the U.S. is running its relief efforts out of Thailand. Any sense of their presence right now?

RAMAN: Out here, not really. We're pretty far out into the destruction area. The only relief efforts we see are motorcades. Police guarded -- not guarded, escorted vehicles coming in with water, with coffins, with plastic sheets to wrap the bodies with. I'm sure you know further into the central areas it's felt. But the relief effort really just starting to now get to the areas that were perhaps most affected.

You think of these tsunami waves, they drag back out with them debris and then they come roaring back with buses, with cars. So the destruction here, especially a flat land area without much infrastructure to mitigate the force of the waves, could go very far inland -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Aneesh Raman, reporting live from Thailand this morning, thank you.

We want to get an idea of just how the UNICEF is tackling this enormous aid effort. For that we go live to Jakarta, Indonesia and UNICEF's John Budd.

Good morning -- John. John, are you there?

We lost John from UNICEF. We'll try to get it...

JOHN BUDD, UNICEF: No, no, I'm here. I'm here.

COSTELLO: You're there -- John.

BUDD: Yes.

COSTELLO: Good, I'm glad, because I think people need to hear this part of the story as well. Tell me about your efforts right now.

BUDD: The situation is now determined to be a lot more serious than we had initially anticipated, so our efforts are becoming increasingly hard, I've got to admit. We have a situation now where we have officially over 27,000 dead, but we believe the figure is going to be closer to 40,000.

Four point five million people are affected in 21 districts. We've got 60 percent of the provincial capital of Bandaraches (ph) being destroyed. And people without shelter, our count, are about 500,000, 100,000 houses have been lost. So the scale of the disaster is absolutely mammoth, and we need all the help we can get.

COSTELLO: So where do you start -- John?

BUDD: Well we have already started. We will have emergency medical kits, should be in the district by I guess this weekend. But even there it's difficult to assess how we're actually going to get them to the 200,000 people we've identified that desperately need them because there is no fuel in the province. I mean I'll give you an example, the ambulances, they only have rationed to five liters of petrol per day. So it is a really serious situation.

So what we're going to have to do is get it into a provincial city called Maydam (ph), which is just to the south of the disaster area, and then truck it in. And hope for the best that we can identify in the next three to four days a way in which we can get that emergency health equipment to as many of those 500,000 who are without shelter.

COSTELLO: We want to talk specifically now about the children. We've heard so many stories of so many children dying and also children who have lost their parents, can't find them, are wandering around with signs on their chests. What have you seen?

BUDD: Well I haven't seen personally what's been happening up there, so I can't tell you, but we do know that that is the case. We understand that is the case, and UNICEF is sending people up there on Monday with the specific mission to start the tracking process of getting children who are separated from their parents back to their parents. Or if we can't do that, at least identifying a place where they can be kept safely until the initial shock of identifying people has been found.

COSTELLO: Well how do you do that, because a lot of these children speak different languages, they're in shock, they're traumatized? Some of them can't even speak they're so in shock.

BUDD: No, I agree with you. I cannot emphasize how difficult this is going to be. The government infrastructure in the district has collapsed as well. Staff are not turning up to work. It is a terrible mess. And you know we can throw our hands up in the air, but honestly, we've just got to get on with the work and start from the very basis and work out from there.

COSTELLO: John Budd from UNICEF joining DAYBREAK this morning. Thank you so much, John, and for your efforts, too.

BUDD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: As people try to find their missing friends and relatives, CNN brings you their stories taking you Beyond the Soundbite in their own words.

An Evanston, Illinois family waits for any word on 33-year-old Ben Abels. He went missing in Thailand after a wave collapsed his bungalow at a tourist resort. Abels was staying with his companion, Libby North. She was seriously injured when their bungalow fell and crushed her arm and leg. Abels brother, David, says the family wants him back home one way or the other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID ABELS, BROTHER MISSING: We want to recover my brother, Ben, before the Thai authorities cremate him. We don't want a photo of my brother and an urn. We want his body. We want people to go look for him.

He has a tattoo on his left ankle on the inside. It might be on his right, but we think it's on his left, in the shape of a triangle. It's a small tattoo about an inch on each side. He has a birthmark, a distinct birthmark on the left cheek of his face. And we want as many people in the United States to start calling people in Phuket, you know, in Krabi, in Penang, everywhere there, anywhere in Thailand, just to go and just start looking for him.

And, you know, if he's alive, that's fantastic, but we want -- if he's not alive, we want to be able to bury him here in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Many families here in the States are still frantic for information on loved ones, as you just heard.

Mary Snow reports on one New York woman who is also awaiting word.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SH. RANASINGHE: I think it's driving us crazy that we're sitting here, like, when we're hungry, we get to eat something.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-four-year-old Shanika Ranasinghe's shock has turned into a desperate search for information about missing family members in Galle, Sri Lanka.

Her uncle is among the missing. Two other members of her extended family, a mother and her disabled daughter, did not survive when a roof collapsed over them. Her father struggles with words to describe the horror.

SARATH RANASINGHE, BROTHER IS MISSING: This is something that you don't want to wish for your worst enemy. I mean it's like -- it reminds me of biblical times, like flood in the bible times.

SNOW: Shanika is spending most of her waking hours trying to get information, mainly from the Internet.

SH. RANASINGHE: I just try to stay as occupied as possible, but, at a point, it kind of drives you crazy when that's -- what you're trying to do is just stay occupied.

SNOW: Part of the information she learned was that the harrowing pictures of a train swallowed by the sea hit close to home. Extended family members were on board.

SH. RANASINGHE: A human part of you feels so angry, because I'm sure you've heard like the lack of a warning system. Like, there is no reason a train should have been traveling down a coast.

SNOW: But the anger has also turned into action. Shanika and her sister are among members of her community's temple collecting everything from clothes to canned foods to medical supplies. And there's also a need for tools and a need for information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother is missing.

SNOW: This Buddhist priest at a nearby temple has been monitoring Sri Lankan broadcasting, trying to help link families with missing relatives.

PERCY NANAYAKKARA, TEMPLE MEMBER: This is sort of like a nerve center where all people contact.

SNOW: And they share grief.

SAMANI RANASINGHE, SEARCHING FOR RELATIVES: There's a sense of community and everybody is helping out. I know most of these people have work today and they're taking time off to help.

SNOW: These sisters are hoping to take time off to go to Sri Lanka themselves to deliver aid and help rebuild.

SH. RANASINGHE: A pair of hands, you know, sometimes is more valuable than any money. So, just to go and be close to them and, you know, not just my own family, like, there's nothing I wouldn't be willing to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That report from CNN's Mary Snow.

Sri Lanka was the second hardest hit country with more than 22,000 people dead.

Going to take a short break now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Help is on the way to those survivors of those huge tsunamis in Asia, but it's coming in slowly. There is an Indian warship now. It's carrying relief. It was spotted out in the ocean.

Mallika Kapur joins us live with more on that.

Mallika, what did you see?

MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

We've just returned from the main harbor here in Port Blair where we did see this Indian Navy warship coming into the harbor. It's come in from a small island called Hud Bay (ph), which is an island near the main Nicobar Island, an area that was very badly affected by the tsunami tidal waves.

Now this ship was carrying more than 200 survivors, people whose homes have been completely wiped away by the tsunami tidal wave. So about 200 people on board this Navy vessel. People of all ages. There were a lot of elderly people, a lot of young babies, people who couldn't walk, people who were obviously in shock, people who have been hurt.

The sailors doing a very good job of giving these people assistance as they came off the ship. The sailors rushing up to carry children on their shoulders, lifting up the elderly who weren't able to come off the ship. Huge crowds waiting outside the harbor, throngs of people. Over 100 people standing right outside the main gates of the harbor waiting to catch a glimpse of the ship, trying to see if they recognized any familiar faces on board this ship.

I met a lady who was standing outside weeping away. She was waiting to see if her husband had made it on the ship at all. She has no idea whether her husband has even survived the tidal waves that hit Hud Bay.

Also, earlier in the day, we spent some time at a refugee camp here in Port Blair, which is where all the survivors are being taken to. The situation there pretty grim. A lot of people crying, a lot of people in shock, a lot of people hurt. Local authorities and several non-governmental organizations doing the best they can to provide them with food and shelter.

One of the officials there was standing on a box by the road appealing to passersby, making announcements, requesting them to drop in, come in with bananas, biscuits, milk powder and offer any assistance they can to those who have been affected -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Mallika Kapur joining us live from the Andaman Islands in India. Thanks so much.

A catastrophic disaster that leaves the threat of disease in its wake. Straight ahead, our Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look at what victims face now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: They somehow lived to tell about the unimaginable walls of water, but now survivors of the tsunami disaster must defeat a new threat, one that some fear could claim just as many lives as the tidal waves.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Sri Lanka this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The biggest goal here in Sri Lanka is to ensure those who survive the tsunami stay living. Health officials warning tonight that as many people may die from disease in these tsunami devastated areas as died from the actual tsunami itself. And from what we've seen here on the ground in Sri Lanka, we'd have to agree.

You see the public health system here struggles in the best of times. Now, it seems practically non-existent. Makeshift morgues, burial sites, often overflowing with the gruesome sight of decomposing bodies. Hospitals without reliable electricity, running water or communication systems now treating everything from broken bones and infections to dehydration and heat stroke. But it's an epidemic of infectious diseases that worries doctors here most.

It's the water supply that now poses the biggest danger to those who survived the killer waves of water that swept ashore here Sunday. Water and food contaminated by human waste and saltwater from the sea can lead to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which can be fatal. Standing water from the flooding can attract mosquitoes, spawning outbreaks of malaria and Dengue fever. Those left homeless, those trying to survive on the streets also face the threat of respiratory illness from bacteria and viruses that quickly spread when unsanitary conditions exists.

Relief efforts now focus on water purification systems and distribution of bottled water being flown in by aid groups, quick burial of bodies and clean up of sewage and debris. The providing of safe and sanitary shelter to those who have been left homeless, as well as clean, temporary medical clinics to treat the sick, as well as the injured.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: One of the most daunting problems right now is getting clean water into the devastated areas. Our registered dietician, Lisa Drayer, will join us in the next hour of DAYBREAK to talk much more about that.

When the earth moves, so does everything else. New in the next hour of DAYBREAK, shock absorbers for skyscrapers and could they have prevented so much death and so much destruction in Asia? The answer is yes.

And does a new year mean new guidelines? Also next hour, a closer look at homeland security in 2005.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And before we head into our next hour, I want to tell you what's happening with the tsunami disaster. The death toll has now gone up three times, three times in just the last half-hour. It now exceeds 67,000 people, and that number is expected to grow. More than half the victims are from Indonesia.

President Bush is expected to talk about the disaster for the first time publicly. That will happen sometime this morning. Of course when it does, we'll take you there live.

I wanted to read some of the appeals on CNN.com, because we've been trying to help people locate their lost relatives over in Asia. And I just wanted to read you some of these in the hopes that you can help. This is all on CNN.com.

Here's one. My sister and her husband are on their honeymoon in Indonesia. Her name is Carla Salazar. His name is Michael Van der Ven. We haven't had any information about them since the earthquake. If somebody knows anything about them, please contact me and that's at vsalazar@invita.com.

And of course it's much easier if you go to the Web site to get these.

Let me read another one. I'm trying to contact my father and his wife, Hugh and Vera Crawford, staying in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Anyone with information, please e-mail me now.

I know that you pulled off some off of CNN.com, too, -- Chad.

MYERS: Carol, you have to realize that there's no information coming in or out of there. There's no Internet left. A lot of the power lines are down. You know there basically is no telephone, or for that matter, not, at that point, telegraph or Internet. So it's going to be hard for these loved ones to connect. Not saying that everybody here is still missing, you just can't get to them because there's no information coming out of there.

I'm looking for my aunt, Teresa Stone (ph), a Texas teacher teaching in Malaysia. She was on holiday in Sri Lanka with a fellow traveler when the tsunami hit. Both are now missing.

You can go to these on CNN.com. There are just lists and lists of them. So many people looking for loved ones.

COSTELLO: It's just heart wrenching.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: And you know I'm sure that loved ones are trying anything they can to find their family members and friends so they're posting these things everywhere.

MYERS: It may get down to ham radio operators being able to go across the oceans and talking to other ham radio operators and maybe even having to translate what the other ham radio operators are saying. You know just like back in the floods back in -- and Agnes. That was the only way to get in and out any information out of northeast Pennsylvania.

COSTELLO: Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes, anything you can do to help, please do, though, CNN.com.

The next hour of DAYBREAK begins right now.

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