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CNN Live Today

Tsunami Disaster: Paradise Shattered

Aired December 30, 2004 - 10:30   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nearly two months after voters went to the polls in Washington State, there is a new governor-elect. The secretary of state today will certify Democrat Christine Gregoire as the winner. She won a hand recount with a 129-vote, edging out her over her opponent. That was out of nearly three million votes cast. The Republican, Dino Rossi, has not decided on a legal challenge, but he has called for a new vote.
And winter storms have left at least five people dead in California, two more in Colorado, and more bad weather in on the way. Snow has closed Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Reno. Since Monday, the region also has had heavy rain and a tornado.

Let's get right to the latest developments in our coverage of the tsunami disaster in South Asia. The death toll has surged yet again this morning. It now stands at 116,000 confirmed deaths. Officials in Indonesia say that country alone accounts for nearly 80,000 of the fatalities. Around the world, relief efforts are gaining momentum. Nations, private companies and individuals have pledges hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and supplies.

The deadly waves allowed no mercy, swallowing young and old, rich and poor, and transforming tropical beauty into grotesque displays of death.

Our Matthew Chance is in Thailand. We must warn you, with Matthew's piece, you will see some graphic images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beneath this smashed concrete, a whole family is trapped. But this is no search for survivors, just more bodies for Thailand to count. This is where the awesome power of the tsunami struck this country hardest. The mud, reminders of the many lives lived and lost here.

Rescue workers told us only half the dead have yet been recovered. The final horrific cost of this disaster still in doubt.

When we first arrived, it was total destruction, he says. There were bodies all over the place. We've cleared it up a lot. But I believe there are many more beneath this rubble.

And for days, makeshift morgues like this one, the grounds of a Buddhist temple, have filled with the remains of Thais and tourists alike. Forensic teams are helping with identification, but in a few days, they say, mass cremations will have to begin. (on camera): This is a scene of the most gruesome kind. The bodies have been laid out in their hundreds here, and are now being sprayed with disinfectant, laid out so that their families and loved ones, survivors, can try and identify them.

But these are appalling conditions. It's hot and humid, and the stench is overwhelming.

(voice-over): And so is the grief. The days here are now filled with hurried funerals. This family told me of their terrible loss, seven dead ages 79 to just 6.

"We don't know what to do," says Lead (ph), the grandmother. "We've gone crazy. I don't think I can survive all alone," she says. No comfort, her loneliness will be shared by so many.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Panan (ph), Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And this is also from Thailand, posh resorts catering to the rich and famous line the beaches of Phuket. That paradise changed in moments, and it becomes more hideous by the day.

CNN's Aneesh Raman filed this report just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Here in Phuket's administrator center, this is really the heart of the relief efforts for the region. A massive area enormously crowded with people desperately looking to find loved ones. On the left, a wall of the missing, posters being put together by relatives desperately seeking those who've been displaced.

Here's one of a 5-year-old German boy from Cow Lock (ph), the area hat has seen the highest casualty rate, numbers being posted by his mother. To the right, an American that remains missing. A number there as well for anyone that might have any information on where these individuals are. This is the side of hope.

On the other side to my right is where the despair exists. These are pictures of the dead, taken so that relatives can come to identify the bodies of their loved ones. But as we now go forward into the fourth day of these relief efforts, the bodies being found are beyond recognition at times, so decomposed. So for some relatives even this closure, as grim as it is, will be elusive.

The entire area is sort of a tent city. Behind me, you'll see where they're distributing clean water, where they're giving out food.

Also given the large number of foreigners involved, Thais from across the country have come here who speak French, who speak German, to try and communicate. Really every emotion possible exists here. There is hope. There is despair. But the overriding one is a sense of collective empathy from the Thai people who have come with such an outpouring of support for the large number of tourists who are displaced in a land that they do not call home.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, Southern Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: For the last few days we've been calling your attention to something on CNN.com. It's a feature where people can share what they witnessed as they witnessed the wrath and the ravages of the tsunami disaster. We wanted to share a few of those e-mail with you. One from Sri Lanka now, one person writing in, "It is devastating to see six young girls washed away in the coastal town of Galle. They were in the town center shopping. Suddenly the town filled with water, saw those girls hanging onto a pillar, but suddenly one girl lost the grip and washed away, and then the other girls purposely did it. For sure, they wanted to save their friend."

And another from Sri Lanka, "Simply it was like Armageddon."

If you'd like to post your story or make a personal appeal, because there's also that feature on CNN.com. If you're looking for a missing friend family member, go to CNN.com/quake. We'll bring you more stories of the missing in our continuous coverage of the tsunami disaster.

The tragedy has people across the world's oceans with at least three dozen nations confirming their citizens are among the dead. Nowhere has that tragedy resonated more deeply than in Britain, where many families have learned of their losses and many more awaiting word.

We get that story from reporter Paul Davies with British network ITV.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another day of tearful reunions at British airports, as survivors of the tsunami return home, these families aware just how fortunate they are.

For across Britain there are increasingly desperate families awaiting news of loved ones still missing. Twenty-two-year-old James Hurran from Great Yarmouth called his father on Christmas Day from the Thai holiday island of Ko Phi Phi. He hasn't been heard from since.

DALE HURRAN, JAMES' FATHER: Since it happened (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just stuck by the phone, you know, 24/7, haven't heard from him, so now I took the bull by the horns and flying out tomorrow to Thailand myself.

DAVIES: Fourteen-year-old Francesca Britton from Blackpool knows her missing mother, grandfather and uncle were struck by a giant wave on Ko Phi Phi.

FRANCESCA BRITTON, DAUGHTER OF MISSING WOMAN: We've sent pictures out. There's posters all around the hospitals, you know. Everybody is trying their best to find them. DAVIES: For some, like Nigel Willgrass, the worst fears have already been realized. He last saw his wife, Louise, alive going to buy sun cream in the Thai resort of Phuket. Mr. Willgrass' four children and their car were swept away but somehow survived. Back in his Norfolk home he described finding his wife's body in a local hospital.

NIGEL WILLGRASS, HUSBAND OF VICTIM: And there was a door on the right-hand side that said "morgue" and I thought I'm sure she's not in there but, you know, I can't seem to go in, you know, into the wards. I'll just go there and see if she was there. And I went in and she was there with many other people. And it was -- it was just awful.

DAVIES: Arrangements are now being made to fly Louise Willgrass' body back to Britain.

Paul Davies, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We have stories of survivors for you as well today. Another couple caught right in the midst is of the troubled waters. Literally they were in the water. Still ahead, how this husband and wife scuba diving team outswam the tsunami.

Plus, a family that outran the tsunami. Now they're running to the open arms of loved ones. Touching stories of survival and reunions, when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

KAGAN: Let's go ahead and take a look at other stories making news coast to coast today. Beginning with Lisa Montgomery. She'll be in a federal court for a little over four hours from now. She is accused of strangling a pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, and then taking the baby as her own. Today's hearing to determine whether Montgomery should be freed on bond pending trial.

Customers had to be careful what they asked for at this mobile hot dog stand in Nassau County, New York. The two female entrepreneurs were arrested for allegedly turning tricks inside the camper. Someone spilled the beans on the women about a week ago.

And in Philadelphia, fire officials say this five alarm blaze at a church is now under control. No one was believed inside the building when the fire started about 4:00 this morning. The cause not yet known. Area residents have been temporarily evacuated to a nearby school.

And now we get back to our top story, the tsunami disaster in South Asia. Days of agonizing, wait and uncertainty are now closing happily for dozens of American families. They're being reunited with loved ones who were in the path of disaster. Take a look at this reunion in San Francisco. A couple and their two children return with the harrowing tale of how they outran the wall of water on Thailand's Phi Phi Island.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLIN FIRMAGE, 10-YEAR-OLD SURVIVOR: The sound was just horrible. It sounded like a jet engine just right maybe five feet behind you. People screaming as maybe the water hit them. Trees cracking, half of it floating. It was just so horrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: The family returned to their hotel to find it leveled and all their belongings sucked out to sea. They spent the night on a hill with about 200 other survivors and returned home in disbelief of how caring and generous the locals were there in helping them out.

And now the story of a California couple. They're back home wearing only the clothes they had when they encountered the tsunami before it hit land. Our Miguel Marquez has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How to survive a tsunami. For one lucky couple, it was scuba diving directly in its path.

FAYE LINDA WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were sucked down to 40 meters very quickly, which is deeper than you want to be diving with an open water certification.

MARQUEZ: Faye Linda Wachs and her husband Gene Kim were exploring a shipwreck about seven miles off Thailand's Phi islands when the tsunami swept past them.

EUGENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I consider myself a novice to intermediate diver. This is the first time I had to do an emergency assent under unusual and harsh circumstances. So it was terrifying.

MARQUEZ: They attempted to surface by inflating their life vests, but the massive current of water racing toward Thailand's shore pulled them into deeper water.

KIM: I was getting tossed around. I bumped up a couple times against the wreck itself, and swam up as hard as I could, looked at my gauge, and I was still dropping.

MARQUEZ: They had just survived a tsunami. Only hours later when they headed for their hotel, did they realize it.

WACHS: The island is essentially gone. We left paradise. It was a beautiful island and we came back to just hell.

MARQUEZ: They helped rescue and care for the injured. With all their belongings swept out to sea, they returned home wearing only swimsuits, still counting themselves as lucky. Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: All right. Well, all week we've been showing you unbelievable pictures revealing the impact of a tsunami. If you are still trying to fathom the size of this devastation, imagine a tsunami stretching across the entire U.S. We're going to put it all in perspective when we come back. Plus, this is what we're working on for next hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The scope of the tsunami disaster spreads far beyond the eleven nations where there has been death and destruction. CNN's Beth Nissen puts the tragedy in perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What on earth happened?

First, an earthquake so strong that NASA geophysicists now believe it may have caused the planet to wobble on its axis. What followed changed the face of the planet. This was the satellite view of the west Sri Lankan coast before the earthquake broke the ocean floor and released the monstrous tsunamis. And this is the view after those huge waves crashed ashore, blurring the edges of nations and a subcontinent, entirely erasing an unknown number of small islands.

The devastation reached across six time zones, more than 4,000 miles, from Malaysia and Thailand to Somalia and Tanzania in Northeast Africa. That's more than the breadth of the entire U.S. mainland from the tip of Maine to San Francisco. It is harder to measure, to comprehend the extent of human misery, loss, how to fathom at least 45,000 death in Indonesia. That's as if most of the population of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had been killed in a sudden roil of mud and seawater, how to imagine more than 23,000 dead in Sri Lanka.

That's close to the entire population of Helena, Montana, suddenly gone. Compared to those fatality numbers, the preliminary total of the dead in India, more than 10,000 so far, seems perversely small, the loss of at least 1,800 in Thailand smaller still. That alone staggers, that the loss of almost 2,000 fellow humans is relatively small.

It is unlikely there will ever be a count of the lives forever changed by those deadly waves, the number of children who have lost loving parents, of parents who will never see their children grow up. The waves of anguish, grief are global. The death count includes people of at least 40 nationalities, many of them vacationing in the area, British and Japanese, South Korean and South African, 12 from the United States.

As many nationalities are among the thousands still missing. About 20,000 Swedish tourists are thought to have been in the area. An estimated 1,500 of them among the missing, so many that Sweden's foreign minister said, you won't find many people in Sweden who don't have some personal link to this tragedy. U.S. Embassy officials are working from a list of more than 2,000 names of missing Americans, although the State Department believes most of them are alive, but unable to get a phone call home. Numbers of the missing are fluid, quickly changing, as many as 1,200 from Switzerland, perhaps 1,000 from Germany, 900 from Norway unaccounted for, 600 from Italy, 200 each from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland.

To factor the true loss, multiply the missing by the number of those who loved them and cared for them, who raised them, grew up with them, worked with them, lived next door. What on earth happened? This, the loss of a life in the flash of a moment, this multiplied by 80,000, maybe 90,000, maybe more.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Checking weather here in the U.S., the top of a broadcasting tower in San Diego, no match for the high winds across Southern California. Look at that. Looks like a bunch of Lincoln logs. About 20 vehicles were damaged by falling debris when the top section of that tower toppled over. Two radio stations and cable television stations were knocked off the air.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Well, with everything that we've shown you, we still have one of the most emotional stories that you have seen yet. A young mother caught in the tsunami with her two toddlers, forced to make the most unthinkable decision. We'll have her story coming up, as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right now.

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 30, 2004 - 10:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nearly two months after voters went to the polls in Washington State, there is a new governor-elect. The secretary of state today will certify Democrat Christine Gregoire as the winner. She won a hand recount with a 129-vote, edging out her over her opponent. That was out of nearly three million votes cast. The Republican, Dino Rossi, has not decided on a legal challenge, but he has called for a new vote.
And winter storms have left at least five people dead in California, two more in Colorado, and more bad weather in on the way. Snow has closed Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Reno. Since Monday, the region also has had heavy rain and a tornado.

Let's get right to the latest developments in our coverage of the tsunami disaster in South Asia. The death toll has surged yet again this morning. It now stands at 116,000 confirmed deaths. Officials in Indonesia say that country alone accounts for nearly 80,000 of the fatalities. Around the world, relief efforts are gaining momentum. Nations, private companies and individuals have pledges hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and supplies.

The deadly waves allowed no mercy, swallowing young and old, rich and poor, and transforming tropical beauty into grotesque displays of death.

Our Matthew Chance is in Thailand. We must warn you, with Matthew's piece, you will see some graphic images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beneath this smashed concrete, a whole family is trapped. But this is no search for survivors, just more bodies for Thailand to count. This is where the awesome power of the tsunami struck this country hardest. The mud, reminders of the many lives lived and lost here.

Rescue workers told us only half the dead have yet been recovered. The final horrific cost of this disaster still in doubt.

When we first arrived, it was total destruction, he says. There were bodies all over the place. We've cleared it up a lot. But I believe there are many more beneath this rubble.

And for days, makeshift morgues like this one, the grounds of a Buddhist temple, have filled with the remains of Thais and tourists alike. Forensic teams are helping with identification, but in a few days, they say, mass cremations will have to begin. (on camera): This is a scene of the most gruesome kind. The bodies have been laid out in their hundreds here, and are now being sprayed with disinfectant, laid out so that their families and loved ones, survivors, can try and identify them.

But these are appalling conditions. It's hot and humid, and the stench is overwhelming.

(voice-over): And so is the grief. The days here are now filled with hurried funerals. This family told me of their terrible loss, seven dead ages 79 to just 6.

"We don't know what to do," says Lead (ph), the grandmother. "We've gone crazy. I don't think I can survive all alone," she says. No comfort, her loneliness will be shared by so many.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Panan (ph), Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And this is also from Thailand, posh resorts catering to the rich and famous line the beaches of Phuket. That paradise changed in moments, and it becomes more hideous by the day.

CNN's Aneesh Raman filed this report just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Here in Phuket's administrator center, this is really the heart of the relief efforts for the region. A massive area enormously crowded with people desperately looking to find loved ones. On the left, a wall of the missing, posters being put together by relatives desperately seeking those who've been displaced.

Here's one of a 5-year-old German boy from Cow Lock (ph), the area hat has seen the highest casualty rate, numbers being posted by his mother. To the right, an American that remains missing. A number there as well for anyone that might have any information on where these individuals are. This is the side of hope.

On the other side to my right is where the despair exists. These are pictures of the dead, taken so that relatives can come to identify the bodies of their loved ones. But as we now go forward into the fourth day of these relief efforts, the bodies being found are beyond recognition at times, so decomposed. So for some relatives even this closure, as grim as it is, will be elusive.

The entire area is sort of a tent city. Behind me, you'll see where they're distributing clean water, where they're giving out food.

Also given the large number of foreigners involved, Thais from across the country have come here who speak French, who speak German, to try and communicate. Really every emotion possible exists here. There is hope. There is despair. But the overriding one is a sense of collective empathy from the Thai people who have come with such an outpouring of support for the large number of tourists who are displaced in a land that they do not call home.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, Southern Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: For the last few days we've been calling your attention to something on CNN.com. It's a feature where people can share what they witnessed as they witnessed the wrath and the ravages of the tsunami disaster. We wanted to share a few of those e-mail with you. One from Sri Lanka now, one person writing in, "It is devastating to see six young girls washed away in the coastal town of Galle. They were in the town center shopping. Suddenly the town filled with water, saw those girls hanging onto a pillar, but suddenly one girl lost the grip and washed away, and then the other girls purposely did it. For sure, they wanted to save their friend."

And another from Sri Lanka, "Simply it was like Armageddon."

If you'd like to post your story or make a personal appeal, because there's also that feature on CNN.com. If you're looking for a missing friend family member, go to CNN.com/quake. We'll bring you more stories of the missing in our continuous coverage of the tsunami disaster.

The tragedy has people across the world's oceans with at least three dozen nations confirming their citizens are among the dead. Nowhere has that tragedy resonated more deeply than in Britain, where many families have learned of their losses and many more awaiting word.

We get that story from reporter Paul Davies with British network ITV.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another day of tearful reunions at British airports, as survivors of the tsunami return home, these families aware just how fortunate they are.

For across Britain there are increasingly desperate families awaiting news of loved ones still missing. Twenty-two-year-old James Hurran from Great Yarmouth called his father on Christmas Day from the Thai holiday island of Ko Phi Phi. He hasn't been heard from since.

DALE HURRAN, JAMES' FATHER: Since it happened (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just stuck by the phone, you know, 24/7, haven't heard from him, so now I took the bull by the horns and flying out tomorrow to Thailand myself.

DAVIES: Fourteen-year-old Francesca Britton from Blackpool knows her missing mother, grandfather and uncle were struck by a giant wave on Ko Phi Phi.

FRANCESCA BRITTON, DAUGHTER OF MISSING WOMAN: We've sent pictures out. There's posters all around the hospitals, you know. Everybody is trying their best to find them. DAVIES: For some, like Nigel Willgrass, the worst fears have already been realized. He last saw his wife, Louise, alive going to buy sun cream in the Thai resort of Phuket. Mr. Willgrass' four children and their car were swept away but somehow survived. Back in his Norfolk home he described finding his wife's body in a local hospital.

NIGEL WILLGRASS, HUSBAND OF VICTIM: And there was a door on the right-hand side that said "morgue" and I thought I'm sure she's not in there but, you know, I can't seem to go in, you know, into the wards. I'll just go there and see if she was there. And I went in and she was there with many other people. And it was -- it was just awful.

DAVIES: Arrangements are now being made to fly Louise Willgrass' body back to Britain.

Paul Davies, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We have stories of survivors for you as well today. Another couple caught right in the midst is of the troubled waters. Literally they were in the water. Still ahead, how this husband and wife scuba diving team outswam the tsunami.

Plus, a family that outran the tsunami. Now they're running to the open arms of loved ones. Touching stories of survival and reunions, when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

KAGAN: Let's go ahead and take a look at other stories making news coast to coast today. Beginning with Lisa Montgomery. She'll be in a federal court for a little over four hours from now. She is accused of strangling a pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, and then taking the baby as her own. Today's hearing to determine whether Montgomery should be freed on bond pending trial.

Customers had to be careful what they asked for at this mobile hot dog stand in Nassau County, New York. The two female entrepreneurs were arrested for allegedly turning tricks inside the camper. Someone spilled the beans on the women about a week ago.

And in Philadelphia, fire officials say this five alarm blaze at a church is now under control. No one was believed inside the building when the fire started about 4:00 this morning. The cause not yet known. Area residents have been temporarily evacuated to a nearby school.

And now we get back to our top story, the tsunami disaster in South Asia. Days of agonizing, wait and uncertainty are now closing happily for dozens of American families. They're being reunited with loved ones who were in the path of disaster. Take a look at this reunion in San Francisco. A couple and their two children return with the harrowing tale of how they outran the wall of water on Thailand's Phi Phi Island.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLIN FIRMAGE, 10-YEAR-OLD SURVIVOR: The sound was just horrible. It sounded like a jet engine just right maybe five feet behind you. People screaming as maybe the water hit them. Trees cracking, half of it floating. It was just so horrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: The family returned to their hotel to find it leveled and all their belongings sucked out to sea. They spent the night on a hill with about 200 other survivors and returned home in disbelief of how caring and generous the locals were there in helping them out.

And now the story of a California couple. They're back home wearing only the clothes they had when they encountered the tsunami before it hit land. Our Miguel Marquez has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How to survive a tsunami. For one lucky couple, it was scuba diving directly in its path.

FAYE LINDA WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were sucked down to 40 meters very quickly, which is deeper than you want to be diving with an open water certification.

MARQUEZ: Faye Linda Wachs and her husband Gene Kim were exploring a shipwreck about seven miles off Thailand's Phi islands when the tsunami swept past them.

EUGENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I consider myself a novice to intermediate diver. This is the first time I had to do an emergency assent under unusual and harsh circumstances. So it was terrifying.

MARQUEZ: They attempted to surface by inflating their life vests, but the massive current of water racing toward Thailand's shore pulled them into deeper water.

KIM: I was getting tossed around. I bumped up a couple times against the wreck itself, and swam up as hard as I could, looked at my gauge, and I was still dropping.

MARQUEZ: They had just survived a tsunami. Only hours later when they headed for their hotel, did they realize it.

WACHS: The island is essentially gone. We left paradise. It was a beautiful island and we came back to just hell.

MARQUEZ: They helped rescue and care for the injured. With all their belongings swept out to sea, they returned home wearing only swimsuits, still counting themselves as lucky. Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: All right. Well, all week we've been showing you unbelievable pictures revealing the impact of a tsunami. If you are still trying to fathom the size of this devastation, imagine a tsunami stretching across the entire U.S. We're going to put it all in perspective when we come back. Plus, this is what we're working on for next hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The scope of the tsunami disaster spreads far beyond the eleven nations where there has been death and destruction. CNN's Beth Nissen puts the tragedy in perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What on earth happened?

First, an earthquake so strong that NASA geophysicists now believe it may have caused the planet to wobble on its axis. What followed changed the face of the planet. This was the satellite view of the west Sri Lankan coast before the earthquake broke the ocean floor and released the monstrous tsunamis. And this is the view after those huge waves crashed ashore, blurring the edges of nations and a subcontinent, entirely erasing an unknown number of small islands.

The devastation reached across six time zones, more than 4,000 miles, from Malaysia and Thailand to Somalia and Tanzania in Northeast Africa. That's more than the breadth of the entire U.S. mainland from the tip of Maine to San Francisco. It is harder to measure, to comprehend the extent of human misery, loss, how to fathom at least 45,000 death in Indonesia. That's as if most of the population of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had been killed in a sudden roil of mud and seawater, how to imagine more than 23,000 dead in Sri Lanka.

That's close to the entire population of Helena, Montana, suddenly gone. Compared to those fatality numbers, the preliminary total of the dead in India, more than 10,000 so far, seems perversely small, the loss of at least 1,800 in Thailand smaller still. That alone staggers, that the loss of almost 2,000 fellow humans is relatively small.

It is unlikely there will ever be a count of the lives forever changed by those deadly waves, the number of children who have lost loving parents, of parents who will never see their children grow up. The waves of anguish, grief are global. The death count includes people of at least 40 nationalities, many of them vacationing in the area, British and Japanese, South Korean and South African, 12 from the United States.

As many nationalities are among the thousands still missing. About 20,000 Swedish tourists are thought to have been in the area. An estimated 1,500 of them among the missing, so many that Sweden's foreign minister said, you won't find many people in Sweden who don't have some personal link to this tragedy. U.S. Embassy officials are working from a list of more than 2,000 names of missing Americans, although the State Department believes most of them are alive, but unable to get a phone call home. Numbers of the missing are fluid, quickly changing, as many as 1,200 from Switzerland, perhaps 1,000 from Germany, 900 from Norway unaccounted for, 600 from Italy, 200 each from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland.

To factor the true loss, multiply the missing by the number of those who loved them and cared for them, who raised them, grew up with them, worked with them, lived next door. What on earth happened? This, the loss of a life in the flash of a moment, this multiplied by 80,000, maybe 90,000, maybe more.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Checking weather here in the U.S., the top of a broadcasting tower in San Diego, no match for the high winds across Southern California. Look at that. Looks like a bunch of Lincoln logs. About 20 vehicles were damaged by falling debris when the top section of that tower toppled over. Two radio stations and cable television stations were knocked off the air.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Well, with everything that we've shown you, we still have one of the most emotional stories that you have seen yet. A young mother caught in the tsunami with her two toddlers, forced to make the most unthinkable decision. We'll have her story coming up, as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com