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Campbell Brown
Help For Haiti?
Aired January 14, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome, everybody.
Tonight: Help on its way to Haiti. But, for some, it may not get there quickly enough.
Throughout the day, we have been hearing miraculous stories of survival, but also heartbreaking stories of human tragedy. This is a massive catastrophe, and the situation still perilous for so many people.
For us, one image captures I think the anguish you see in the faces of so many in the aftermath of the quake. Take a look at this. This is Cindy (ph). She is screaming as she spots the feet of her 14- year-old brother buried in rubble. That was once his school.
And she is one of an estimated two million children who have been affected by this disaster. Remember, half the Haitian population is under 18 years old, half of the population. They are particularly vulnerable right now.
Tonight, we are going to focus on them. There is still no electricity, no water in much of Port-au-Prince, no heavy machinery to make its way through the debris-strewn streets right now. That's why we have seen so many scenes like this today, people using their bare hands to dig survivors out from under these crumpled buildings.
But soon more than 5,000 American troops will be on the ground in Haiti. Today, the U.S. government did take control of Haiti's airport to direct the stream of relief flooding into the country. There had been a huge backup at the airport earlier today. We will have reporting on that.
CNN correspondents tirelessly covering this story, and we're going to bring you their reporting during this hour.
We begin with Ivan Watson, and this is a tough story to share with you, but, all day, Ivan has been watching the dramatic effort to rescue an 11-year-old girl who is trapped in the rubble. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can hear her voice sometimes -- is an 11-year-old girl named Anaika Sanlouis (ph). She's pinned underneath this rubble. And the -- the volunteers here are snaking through a hose right now to give her some drinking water. She is about 10 feet away.
And you can see the braids of this little girl's hair. I talked with her. She's wearing glasses and she is crying. She is in a lot of pain right now, and she is terribly scared.
This little girl -- it is kind of heartbreaking to hear this, because she's pinned there, Don. Her right leg is underneath the concrete, and her hands are free and her leg is free, and she is talking to us.
They are trying to give her some drinking water right now, and they have given her some food already. They only discovered her today, two days after the earthquake.
They think there are several dozen other people trapped under the rubble who probably did not survive. They're desperately trying to figure out how to get her out.
They are thinking about trying to cut her leg. They have anesthetics, but they don't have blood to help her if they have to cut her leg off to get her out, so they don't know what to do right now.
When they cut with a saw, she doesn't like it at all. It hurts a lot.
Now, they have put a little bible next to her. You know, there's a pretty little girl. She's got braids. She's got black reading glasses and a chipped front tooth.
And we were talking to her, and she is terribly scared right now. And her mother is beside herself.
This is just one case here. You know, we were on a neighboring hilltop, and there were two little French girls trapped under a building there, and only one French fireman working to try to help them out. And he was passing them water.
This is something that is probably replaying itself all across Port-au-Prince, and there's just not enough rescue workers to help. These guys, they say if they could just get the right equipment they need, they could perhaps lift some of this and get her out without cutting her leg.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) dead body.
WATSON: They have pulled -- we don't want to really show that. They have pulled a piece of a dead body -- this is very difficult -- that was next to her. And they are trying to free out some area around this little girl.
And we understand that there are perhaps some 30 other relatives and neighbors who were trapped underneath the rubble. This is just one house. We are seeing scenes like this all over this city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And Ivan Watson is with us now in Port-au-Prince.
And, Ivan, sorry, I have just been told that this little girl was rescued. Tell us what you know about it. And please tell us she's going to be OK.
WATSON: Yes, we just spoke with her uncle.
And within the last two hours, they did manage to get a little generator in there to run an electric saw to cut a piece of metal to free her leg. And they have rushed the 11-year-old Anaika (ph) to medical care. She went to some kind of a first aid station. And her leg is so badly wounded that they now need to go to a more sophisticated hospital.
They told us they were going to go to a hospital some three hours outside of Port-au-Prince because, of course, the medical facilities here are pretty much overwhelmed right now. So, she's made it past that first terrible hurdle. Now the question is treating her very grave injuries -- Campbell.
BROWN: And, Ivan, we should tell people this is just one of many rescue efforts that you witnessed today.
WATSON: Absolutely.
We saw this scene replayed in many other places. Usually, you had ordinary Haitians, volunteers coming in with no training to try to free their neighbors, their loved ones from underneath the rubble.
We also went to the Montana Hotel. That's a posh five-story hotel that collapsed into a pile of rubble frequented by diplomats, by foreign journalists. And there we saw dozens of American professional rescue workers. We saw Chilean and French rescue workers. We spoke with one of these men from Fairfax, Virginia. They were struggling to rescue a woman named Sarah (ph), who they had had contact with underneath the rubble.
Let's take a listen to what this rescue worker had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID BARLOW, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA, URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE: We have made contact with a female patient who we made contact with the use of our listening devices. We made contact with her numerous times during the day.
She was in the bar area, so now we're trying to reach that bar area. The building here has suffered numerous secondary collapses because of the tremors that they had yesterday. So, we're still making contact. Things are still looking good. It's just a matter of us gaining access to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATSON: So there is some help on the way., some professional rescue workers. But it's still a battle to help the survivors make it through the next very crucial hours -- Campbell.
BROWN: Ivan Watson for us tonight -- Ivan, thank you so much.
One of the most moving scenes that we saw today involves our own chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And I want you to watch as he comes to the aid of a 15-day-old baby girl who had been injured in the quake. The baby's father approached a CNN crew asking for help. The crew brought the baby to Sanjay to take a look. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, we are walking through the streets of Port-au-Prince right now, get a real idea of what things are like here.
There is just very little in the way of resources or very little in the promise of help.
A 15-day-old baby, some sort of head injury. They are begging for a doctor.
Turn this on, please. Can you tell me what happened, specifically?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The house collapsed.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the mother died.
(CROSSTALK)
GUPTA: How has she been? What has she been through?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just that bandage.
GUPTA: Well, she is moving both of her arms. That is a good sign. She is moving both of her legs.
Can you look through there again and see if you have any more gauze and bandages?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have some big gauze. I can cut it down.
GUPTA: She has a pretty significant laceration here. And what I need to make sure is that she doesn't have a skull fracture underneath. The good news is, I don't think she does. So, that's good.
This is OK. There's no skull fracture underneath here. She's got a big laceration underneath her skull. But she is moving all four extremities.
Hi, sweetie. Hi, sweetie. Hi.
How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifteen days.
GUPTA: She's going to need some antibiotics. And we're going to need to redress this wound. So, let's go ahead to do that with some clean -- let's get a clean piece of that and that gauze.
So, this is what is happening out here in the streets of Port-au- Prince. In this case, a 15-day-old baby who was in the earthquake -- let me have you hold that for a second. Yes, once over the forehead.
So, she has no skull fracture. She does have a big laceration. She is going to need antibiotics. But she does not appear to have a head injury. I think she's going to be OK.
She's sucking her thumb. She's -- she's good.
There you go. She should get some antibiotics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And Sanjay Gupta is joining us right now from Port-au- Prince outside one of the few hospitals that's still standing and still functioning.
And, Sanjay, I apologize. As a mother, I'm having a really hard time watching a lot of this, as I'm sure people at home are, and I'm sure you are.
Tell us what's happening there now at the hospital. Have they been able to get more people in, more medical aid? I know that's been such an issue.
GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting, because this is one of the few standing hospitals here in Port-au-Prince, lots of patients coming through here, at least one doctor, perhaps, two doctors from time to time, trying to take care of hundreds of patients.
The problem is, as you have been hearing for some time now, Campbell, there's a real shortage of some of the most basic supplies. We're talking about gauze, bandages, orthopedic equipment, antibiotics, and pain medication.
These are basic things in just about any trauma situation. Problem is, they're not here at this hospital. Campbell, I don't -- it's pretty dark out now, so I don't know how much you can see. But behind me is sort of a makeshift hospital.
This is -- we're outside, and these are grounds where people have basically put up tents, put up these privacy barriers. These are patients who basically have been told they have no care available to them. Either they're not sick enough or they're so sick that there's nothing that can be done for them.
About every 20 to 30 minutes or so, you will start to hear family members crying out, screaming, as they realize that their family member has passed away. It just happened just a couple of moments ago. And it keeps happening, people literally dying behind us here.
There is some -- some glimmer of hope that supplies may arrive. We have been hearing about this from various doctors that have stopped by here. People have been trying to help, but, again, without those basic supplies, Campbell, it's very difficult.
BROWN: Talk to us a little bit about what you saw earlier today. I know you have been walking around and spent the day -- I'm sure the scene, the man stopping you that we all watched with the baby happened repeatedly. Not only are you short supplies but we're hearing there's certainly no doctors, no nurses, no one there to treat people.
GUPTA: Well, I was certainly helping people throughout that area of Port-au-Prince and here at the hospital even, patients who have a lot of crush injuries, people asking to get splints put on, for example, trying to put in I.V.s, wrapping head wounds, all that sort of stuff certainly happening here.
Because of the shortage of manpower, I have been trying to help as much as possible as well. But we also saw some horrific scenes. And, literally, to give you an idea, Campbell -- and I don't know if you are looking at any video of what I'm describing now, but there were scenes where bodies were brought here, the same bodies that we have been hearing about, off the streets, brought to this hospital without any sort of identification, without any sort of proper burial or anything. These bodies are literally put into dump trucks and carted off some distance away.
So, that's something that's happening. And that's part of this cleanup effort that's -- it's horrific to think about. But it's happening. Again, unidentified bodies, family members don't know where they are. They're gone.
BROWN: And, Sanjay, nightfall does bring a certain amount of danger for people everywhere, everyone sleeping outside, the situation becoming increasingly desperate.
Last night, when we spoke to you, there were gunshots. We could hear them in the background as you spoke to us right near where you were. Is there a sense that things -- a little bit of order may have, perhaps, been restored, that there is a little bit of calm, that people are realizing that aid is going to arrive shortly? Or is it still very tenuous?
GUPTA: Well, I think there are pockets of calm throughout the city, Campbell. And, certainly, a hospital setting like this one may be one of those pockets, primarily not because it's not tenuous.
Like I said, people are literally dying here right behind me. But I think it's this idea that this is a hospital, people are trying to give care as best they can, that's being recognized to some extent.
But, having said that, there still seems to be several areas where it's not calm, where people are anxious. There's maybe even some violence. But here, at least, as the dump trucks literally pull up behind me with bodies in those trucks, this area, remarkably, does seem to have some sense of calm.
BROWN: Sanjay Gupta, who has been amazing today and reporting for us tonight -- Sanjay, thank you so much.
I just want to mention, because you are undoubtedly having the same reaction that all of us are watching these images come in, go to our Web site, CNN.com/impact. There are all of the relief organizations that are doing work in Haiti listed there, organized, so that you can do something. Go and help, by all means. It's laid out there to provide you with that information.
Thousands of people in Port-au-Prince who survived the earthquake are now homeless. They are crowding into tent cities that are forming in various places. And some of them did speak today with Anderson Cooper at one of these tent cities. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Makeshift tent (INAUDIBLE) have sprung up all over Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of people are sleeping in this park called Central Park in downtown Port- au-Prince.
But you see it in soccer fields. Any place there's an open field, a little shade, people will congregate. Hundreds of people have slept here overnight. Now they're just starting to wake up. Some of them have actual tents. Some of them just have a plastic sheet like this. Some people, of course, have nothing at all.
There's not really any place for them to go. They can't go back to their homes. If their homes haven't been destroyed already, they're afraid that their homes may crumble in some of these aftershocks, because some of the aftershocks have been pretty significant. So, people just congregate here. And every day when they wake up, they gather up what few possessions they have and they just start walking, searching for food, searching for water, searching for some way to get through the day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And, Anderson Cooper is joining us live now from a different location in Port-au-Prince.
Anderson, we just spoke to Sanjay. Tell us a little bit about where you are and what's going on there now.
COOPER: Right now, there's people in that park that I talked about earlier assembled. They're singing. They're praying. They're singing songs, trying to rally their spirits. And we hear that just about every night. And of course they will be there all night.
I was at the cemetery earlier today. I was trying to figure out what is going to happen to so many of these people who have died, so many of these bodies we see on the streets. It's a sight I will never forget. At the cemetery, there is literally a pile of corpses, people who had just been brought there, wheeled in wheelbarrows. And they are literally dumped into a pile, a mound.
At first, it's hard to know what you're looking at. It just looks like sort of a -- I mean, you can't tell what it is. And it's only once you get up close that you begin to smell the people first and then you see them.
They're literally -- the cemetery, they are taking the people and just tossing them into old crypts, aboveground burial chambers, old family crypts, some that seem to have been around for maybe more than 100 years. They have other people's names on them. They're literally opening them up. And it appears as if they're just reusing old crypts.
I saw one crypt in which they had -- were pushing as many bodies as they could fit, women, small children, into a crypt, and then they would just reseal it. I followed one family who was trying to have their daughter buried,a 28-year-old woman.
And they were able to -- they had a coffin, at least, which is -- costs money and a lot of people can't afford. And a lot of people who die are separated from their family members. So, their families don't even know that they're dead and have no way of finding them.
And what is so eerie is, these people who are being buried in these essentially mass graves or numerous people in one crypt, they're just going to disappear. There's no records being kept of who these people are. There's no records being kept on where these people are being placed. So, people are just going to disappear.
And their families in Port-au-Prince, in Haiti, in the United States are never going to know what happened to them. No marker of them will be evident. It's -- and I just talked to Chris Lawrence, CNN correspondent, who said just a short time ago he saw some bulldozers moving through town picking up bodies and dumping them into the back of dump trucks. Where they are being taken, I don't know.
BROWN: And, to that point, Anderson, is there any sense of who is in charge, if anybody at all is in charge or trying to organize an effort to address this locally? We recognize that the military is arriving. The U.S. military is arriving. And they're operating out of the airport.
But is there any sense that there is an infrastructure or any kind of resource in place to do anything?
COOPER: My personal sense is, absolutely not. I don't think anyone is in charge.
You know, there's like a central government in Haiti. There is a president, but there is a history here of a weak central government. And if you talk to Haitian people, they almost -- they don't expect their government to do anything. They're looking to the United States. They're looking to the United Nations.
Clearly -- I talked to an American Red Cross worker last night who said there is no central clearinghouse. There is no one place where all these groups are coming together at this stage. And this was last night. Maybe today, that's begun to change. I don't know. I haven't talked to him today.
But, as of late last night, at midnight, he was saying it's groups, private groups, contacting one another and trying to coordinate stuff. But there's no one saying like, you know what, the greatest need is in this area or the greatest need is in this area, or the greatest need is in Petionville, or the greatest need is in Cite Soleil.
I don't think people have any real overall big sense of the scale of this or where the greatest need is. It just seems like individuals going out. It's neighborhoods, still. It's neighbors banning together and trying to help individuals. I'm not sure how all these aid groups and all the aid that is coming in is going to be coordinated. But, at this point, it doesn't seem like there's a clear-cut organization.
COOPER: And we're going to talk about a little bit, about why it's taken now we're going on three days for help to get there, help still not arriving in so many places.
Anderson Cooper for us tonight -- Anderson, thank you.
Stay with us. When we come back, you will hear from Colin Powell. We will talk about that issue of how the U.S. government is trying to get supplies and people and the Army down there to address this. Stay with us -- a lot more ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I have been here since Tuesday. I haven't left. I have slept here. (INAUDIBLE) I'm still waiting for them. I still have faith that they're still alive inside waiting for a way to come out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: You are looking at this video that was shot immediately after Tuesday's earthquake, people pushing away the rubble, trying to dig themselves out, buildings having just crumbled around them.
Obviously, you can hear people crying for help -- the shock in Haiti of this event still not worn off by any means tonight. U.S. military air traffic controllers are now running the airport in Port- au-Prince. That's the result of an agreement worked out with the Haitian government.
But, for most of the day, massive logistical issues at sea and at the airport made getting these lifesaving supplies into the country extremely difficult.
And CNN's Chris Lawrence described the situation that was going on at the airport earlier today. Take a look at this. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Everyone keeps asking us, why is the aid not getting to Haiti faster? Well, we found out one reason. There are major problems here at the main port of Port-au-Prince.
See that huge green structure right there? That's the primary crane that would pick up those huge containers right off the ship and deposit them on shore to then be trucked into the city. You can see some of the damage with the hangar. Normally, the ships would pull up right down there. They would come off right towards the end there.
They would off-load a lot of their equipment on the trucks, and those trucks would just drive straight down this road right here. But you can see -- look what they would run into. The earthquake has buckled the road almost as tall as I am. There's no way you are going to get a truck through there.
And I can tell you, on the other side, that road is buckled all the way out to the main road.
Take a look behind me. We're live right here on the runway. I know it's loud. If you can see all of those yellow and white cases, that's humanitarian aid that being loaded on to those trucks that will start heading out to the community right now.
Just in the last hour, we have seen several more search-and- rescue teams arrive. South Florida search-and-rescue just got here.
Simply, a lot of the staff has not come to work. Some of the staff is dealing with their own personal tragedies with their homes, their families.
You need a staff to check passports, to process people, to go through records, things like that. That's what they are missing. Even, say, in a lot of the military flights, the military comes with its own infrastructure. That's why it is able to work through this process, whereas some of the commercial airlines, they simply do not have the staff.
I'm joined now by Rebecca Gustafson. You are from USAID, which is the lead agency in terms of moving aid into the country and helping to -- some criticism by some that the aid, the humanitarian aid, food, water, supplies, blankets and things like that, haven't started arriving here in Haiti fast enough. Is that the priority at this point in time?
REBECCA GUSTAFSON, USAID: What I can tell you is that we were activated almost immediately after we understood how large and severe the earthquake was.
This president and the secretary of state obviously came out very quickly and put all the assets that we have in the U.S. government behind the relief effort here in support of the Haitian government. And we will be here until they don't need us anymore. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Hey.
Chris Lawrence, I believe, is joining us live.
Can you hear me, Chris?
LAWRENCE: Sure. Sure can, Campbell.
BROWN: I just want to ask you, because I -- to clarify. It was a little bit hard to hear you at the airport.
What we had heard a lot earlier today is part of the backup was caused because many of the flights couldn't land. There was a backup on the ground at the airport. The flights there weren't able to refuel in order to get out. And so you had all of these aircraft circling, not able to get in with their supplies.
Give us a sense for what -- what caused all of these problems and whether or not this logjam has opened up.
LAWRENCE: Yes. We definitely confirmed that.
We could see that they were holding a lot of the planes. Officials told us that they had them circling around because they simply did not have space for them. We were out there at that airport. And that airport normally handles about 25, maybe 30 flights a day. By 3:30 in the afternoon today, they had already handled twice that many.
So, it's a single runway. There's only so much space. It's not like a JFK or an Atlanta or an O'Hare. It's nothing like that. And, so, what we were told was, it takes time for each plane to land, to load up its passengers that it's trying to evacuate or unload its supplies, and then move out of there, so another plane can land and take its space.
USAID went on to tell us that their primary concern at first was trying to get the search-and-rescue teams in there. That was their priority. In fact, they say some of the search-and-rescue teams and the bomb-sniffing dogs that got in, those dogs were able to alert them to four people who were trapped in the rubble at one of the hotels here in Port-au-Prince.
And they -- and she said, without those dogs there, we never would have known that they were there. So, that was their priority. After the search-and-rescue teams got on the ground and got deployed, as the night wore on, and just in the last couple hours, that's when we started to see more of the food and water and supplies like that start to come into the airport.
BROWN: And, so, who is in charge there, Chris? I -- I -- my understanding is that the U.S. government has this deal now with the Haitian government from what we've been reporting to sort of run this operation trying to get aid out as quickly as possible. Is that your sense?
LAWRENCE: Yes, but finding one person in charge, that was tough. We were asking around and people would tell us, well, I'm in charge of this, but I don't know about that. And you would hear that a lot.
Trying to find some sort of ultimate authority like you would think there would be, someone who had, you know, overall control of airport operations was hard to do. USAID said had its, you know, its area getting the supplies in like that. The State Department was there greeting the U.S. citizens, making sure that they got onboard their flights to be evacuated. You had some airport authorities. But I never once while I was there got the sense that there was any one entity that had a broad overview of everything that was going on and was in firm control.
BROWN: And you really do wonder how this is going to play out with all these various aid organizations going in and working there, whether there will be sort of a central, you know, organizational operation to help make sure that these supplies really get to where they need to go.
Chris Lawrence, I know you're staying on top of this for us. We'll be checking back in with you. Many thanks tonight for your reporting.
And we should say, you know, by this time next week there will be thousands of Americans troops on the ground in Haiti. But on Tuesday, when the earthquake struck, there were only 60 U.S. military personnel in the country. And we just want to give you a little context here. You know, it wasn't always that way.
It was in 1994 Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore order after a coup attempt. They pulled out the following the year. Now, the U.S. control Haiti's largest airport, as we just told you. It's the beginning of a commitment that's certainly not going to end any time soon as this operation gets up and running, but it's certainly a long way from being an organized operation.
Aid from Haiti coming from all over the world, including, of course, the U.S. military. Some 3,500 soldiers, 2,200 Marines due to arrive this weekend. Will that be enough even, the question remains tonight? So listen to what former Secretary of State Colin Powell told Wolf Blitzer and this was just a little while ago. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEN. COLIN POWELL (RET), FMR. FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: The United Nations will have a major role to play with their relief activities. But everybody now wants to help. And you've got to make sure that the help is useful. The best way to help is to send money. And let international agencies such as the Red Cross, best of the bunch I think, let them have the money and they know where to put the money to work. And don't just dump commodities that are not useful.
So you have to have a coordinated effort to decide what is really needed, what's the first priority. And the first priority right now is rescuing people, saving lives, stabilizing the medical situation and bringing in shelter, food and water and to improve the sanitation in the region.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the U.S. military could get that job done. They train for these kinds of humanitarian operations. But is the military stretched too thin right now with wars going on? Afghanistan and Iraq? Can the U.S. military do this?
POWELL: Well, they're doing this. I mean, they're on the way.
We have two wars going on and it puts added pressure on our core (ph) structure when a mission like this comes along, but the capacity exists. And so we've got a brigade of the 82nd and we've got Marines on their way and we've got an aircraft carrier on the way.
Now how long they're going to be down there remains to be seen. But these tend to be combat units and combat service support units, engineers, quarter master, troops of that nature. And they're very, very good. And they're very, very disciplined and they can get in there and do a job that doesn't require shooting. It just requires helping people, clearing away rubble, setting up tent cities, setting up feeding points, bringing in potable water for people. And how long they stay there remains to be seen.
BLITZER: We've seen these pictures of these bodies just on the screen.
POWELL: Bodies and graves --
BLITZER: Thousands --
POWELL: Just dealing with the crisis of casualties, dead people and how do we treat them with respect but at the same time remove them from the area and give them a decent burial so that we don't create an epidemic problem of some kind?
But here's one thing we really have to talk about, Wolf. Once we kind of get over the hump and the streets are open, the airport's flowing, supplies will come in. We can't just then walk away and say, well, we've stabilized the consequences of the earthquake. What happens then?
This country is economically devastated as a result of this earthquake and past problems that it's had. So the international community has to be prepared this time to keep investing in Haiti long after the immediate consequences of the earthquake have been dealt with. They need a functioning economy. We need to give them trade preferences. We might have to give temporary protective status to Haitians who are here in the United States or might come here. We're going to have to help them with this medical problem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Again, that was Colin Powell speaking to Wolf Blitzer earlier. I just want to remind everybody that we told you earlier, go to the Web site, CNN.com/impact for information on how you can help all the aid organizations that are working in Haiti now, listed there. A lot more ahead. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: You are looking at some new pictures that are just feeding into us at this hour tonight. All over Port-au-Prince, there are urgent rescue operations still under way. This is more than 48 hours now after the quake struck.
We want to bring in Susan Candiotti, our own Susan Candiotti. She's been on the scene as Haitians work together to save one of the many thousands of victims. Watch what she reported earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dig this man out since yesterday. What we have before you is this. That little crawl space that you see there is at the bottom of a five-story building. It's a school building. This is the back of it. It fell down during the earthquake crushing this police car.
Below that building were a number of students. They were inside, including one man who happened to be in that building. It came down on top of him and the one side of his body was trapped with his right shoulder pinned underneath one of the concrete floors of the bottom floor. Also one of his hands was trapped between a piece of the police car and they couldn't get him out. So they came up with an ingenious way to work on this.
A group of people, a small group of people. And in Haiti the term is called konbit (ph). It is people who work together. They may not know each other, but they work together to accomplish a single goal, and in this case they had a whole assembly line going you might call it.
They were using some people who were working with a chisel to break away and chip away at the cement. And they had someone else using a blow torch very, very gingerly trying to melt and burn away the rebar to try to cut the man's hand free. And throughout this you could hear people -- you could hear this victim screaming because the heat was burning his hand. But it was all they could do to try to free him. And all of this is playing out while you look at this very, very precarious position here.
Let's look at this building here. It could fall at any time. At times rocks were falling down.
And also, John, they are also hearing other voices inside there. This was a schoolhouse. There were children inside there and adults, teachers as well.
Everyone's being quiet right now because they're hearing some voices inside. But even though they just got one man out and rescued him in an amazingly incredible operation, homespun, now they're trying to see if they hear others. And that's why we're trying to be quiet.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Susan Candiotti back with us live now from Port-au- Prince. Susan, walk us through your day a little bit and tell us certainly what's happening where you are now.
CANDIOTTI: Well, first of all, I just want to explain, too, if you could see it on the camera, that crawl space that they were looking at was only about that high and yet they were able to get that man out. And once they freed him they went right back in to keep looking for other people.
One thing I wanted to add, we were able to get a microphone to him. The people that were working to free him said, yes, and they fed the line right up to him and I asked him, what's going through your mind as all this is happening? And he said, I pray to God that he will save my life. His prayers were answered.
You know, at this hour, of course, you see these things that are continuing to go on, but now, of course, we're starting to see the professionals arriving to help the Haitian people, to free more of these people, bringing in dogs because they're experts who know what to do.
BROWN: Are you -- I was going to say, it's so good, you're the first person to tell me that tonight, because our other correspondents really aren't saying that. Are you seeing, where you are, people arriving with aid and help in terms of the rescue effort?
CANDIOTTI: Yes, as a matter of fact because I don't personally see everything, I base that on one of our correspondents, Chris Lawrence, told me, that he saw these people arriving and that they are now going out into the streets. No first-person anecdotal eyewitness accounts of it as yet, but he saw them on the ground so they are starting to arrive.
BROWN: Susan, that is very good news. I know for a lot of people there. Still a huge time issue here as this search and rescue effort continues. Susan Candiotti for us tonight.
We're going to take another quick break. We have a lot more ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And these are just heartbreaking images that we have been watching come in from Haiti. And I want to go back to CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta who is live tonight from Port-au-Prince there, as we told you earlier, one of the few hospitals, if you can call it that, frankly, makeshift hospital that's still operating there in the capital -- Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you that even behind me right now, we're starting to see some of the commotion going on. A little while ago, Campbell, I told you that literally patients are passing away from their injuries, even behind me here, and some of what I call the coroners, basically have gone behind that tent or packaging. They're getting the body ready to take away. And this is a scene that's been repeated way too often over the last several hours. It just keeps happening.
This is a bit of a makeshift area behind me. These privacy curtains, but then there are these sheets sort of overlying lots of the bodies out there. These are patients who really aren't getting any care at all. Hospitals either told them that they aren't sick enough or they're just too sick, too injured to get any care. And that's why this scene keeps unfolding over and over again behind me.
Campbell, you're absolutely right. It is hard to call this really a hospital, although it is one of the only hospitals still standing. That is because of the tragic lack of resources here. A lot of people wanting to do the right thing, missing some of the basic ingredients of being able to do so. Gauze, bandages, orthopedic equipment, antibiotics, and even just simple pain medications which is why we hear so many patients yelling out, screaming throughout the day and certainly throughout the night now as well, Campbell.
BROWN: And this is really becoming an issue also, Sanjay, of how to take care of the remains of all of these people and how to bury these bodies. How you deal with this at this magnitude, isn't it?
GUPTA: Yes. I was asking that same question or wondering about that same thing. I've seen all these bodies in the streets, Campbell, over the last day. When I came to the hospital what I realized is that this is a place where bodies come.
And I want to show you some images of what we saw. And I want to warn you and your viewers that it's a bit disturbing to watch.
Take a look at how this happens, what happens here. Bodies literally coming out, being carried out in tarps. They're carried out in tarps and literally put in the front of a bulldozer. These are human bodies that we're talking about here. Bulldozer rising up and then eventually dumping those bodies literally into the back of the dump truck. These bodies are not identified. No one knows that they are in that dump truck. They eventually go to some place several kilometers away from here and these bodies are dumped.
I talked to the mayor of this particular area about that. And he says it's the only way that we can really take care of the situation.
I can tell you, you know, even as I'm sitting here talking to you, Campbell, as you might imagine, it invokes strong emotions in people, particularly family members who are curious about their loved ones. Some of those discussions going on right there behind me. But again, I'll tell you I've never seen anything quite like those images you just saw, Campbell. That's how they're basically dealing with the issue of all these bodies in the streets.
BROWN: Which means that so many people are, frankly, never going to know for sure what happened to family members. Still such a lack of communication. People still in the states, around the world, don't know if friends and family are OK. And I think it's going to be some time before they get answers, if at all, to those questions.
Sanjay Gupta joining us again tonight. I have someone here, we're very fortunate to have on the set with us in New York. He's someone who has been working to improve health care in Haiti since he first went there as a student in 1983.
And joining me now is Dr. Paul Farmer. He is the deputy United Nations envoy to Haiti appointed by President Clinton and is traveling to Haiti tomorrow. You are.
DR. PAUL FARMER, DEPUTY U.N. ENVOY TO HAITI: That's true.
BROWN: You're going to try to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do where I'm most useful.
BROWN: I think I had a conversation some years ago with President Clinton, who thought that you knew more about Haiti, frankly, and health care more generally than anybody else he knew in the world. Tell us, just describe the magnitude of the challenge that we have on our hands trying to address what we're seeing here.
FARMER: Well, right now as Sanjay just said, I mean, we still have a lot to do in the area of just rescue. There are people who, as you heard from your correspondents, people still alive under the rubble and relief of suffering including people who are injured and need -- they need trauma surgery and orthopedic care. They need basic general medical care. And I think that's one of the biggest things before us right in the next couple of days is finding out how to deliver, how to get those services to where they're need most.
I don't think anything of this. I know nothing of this magnitude has ever hit Haiti before, and Haiti has had a lot of problems as you know. The reason I've been working with President Clinton and the U.N. is because in 2008 there were four hurricane-sized storms that hit Haiti in quick succession.
So Haiti has been through a lot in the last couple of years just in terms of recovering from natural disasters.
BROWN: But not just the natural disasters. I mean, you know better than anyone what the situation was like generally in this country.
FARMER: Yes.
BROWN: I mean, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Well before this happened and given that, you know, it just seems like such an uphill battle to address even basic needs going forward.
FARMER: Well, you know, I just talked to some of my Haitian co- workers who are in Port-au-Prince in the general hospital. I don't know if Sanjay is there or somewhere else. And they've reported to work.
They don't have electricity yet. They don't have the supplies that they need. But there's a lot of Haitian health professionals, doctors, nurses, aides who would like to, as he said, do right, but to do that you need the supplies. You have to have the basics. Gauze, plaster or other casts. You have to have the equipment that you need. Anesthesia, pain medications, antibiotics. And that's what some of my medical colleagues are asking us for, supplies.
BROWN: And quickly, the government. Is there a government to speak of?
FARMER: There is a government.
BROWN: That is trying -- I mean, we know technically there is but --
FARMER: There's a government. Yes.
Well, you know, look at -- you had -- I've heard someone else, a couple of people or your guests talking about coordination, and coordination of humanitarian assistance I think to the two bodies we have been looking to have been the Haitian government. You see the national palace, you know, crumbled.
BROWN: Right.
FARMER: And the U.N. -- the U.N. took a huge hit. A lot of the people we've been working with are unaccounted for and unlikely to be accounted for.
BROWN: So that means they really have no choice but to wait for people like the U.S. Army to get there.
FARMER: That's right. And I think some of those experts, as one of your correspondents just said, some of those experts in coordination of relief are arriving now. And certainly they've been working around the clock.
I've been working with President Clinton since the time of the earthquake. He's been either calling meetings about this or on the phone. There's a lot going on. And I'm hoping the Haitian people, you know, the people who we care about are going to see this assistance.
BROWN: Begin to see the results of that. Paul Farmer, best of luck to you getting there.
FARMER: Thank you.
BROWN: I know they desperately need your help. You'd be a great addition to the people who are working there.
We're going to take another quick break. We'll be back right after this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember hitting the ground, being under something and realizing I was trapped. I remember fighting a little bit and I have scabs to prove that I was crawling. But I believe I was lifted out within a half hour.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Again, more images coming out of Haiti tonight. I just spoke a short time ago with Bobby and Sherry Burnette. They are missionaries who run an orphanage about an hour outside of Port-au- Prince. And the first thing I asked them obviously was how the children were doing under these incredibly difficult circumstances.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHERRY BURNETTE, RUNS AN ORPHANAGE IN HAITI: The children are wonderful children, but they are so afraid. They all decided to sleep at night outside the orphanage as all the other Haitians are doing all over Haiti. None of the Haitians in Haiti are sleeping inside any buildings whatsoever, even if they're structurally sound. So every night our kids want to take their blankets and go out and sleep in the yard because they are afraid that the ceiling and the concrete is going to fall on their heads.
BROWN: Are you able, do you have the staffing? Are you able to treat people even at the clinic or you're just kind of waiting for supplies to get there?
BOBBY BURNETTE, RUNS AN ORPHANAGE IN HAITI: No, we're able to treat people at the clinic. We had a lot of supplies ahead of time. And what we're doing in the clinic -- of course, with the (INAUDIBLE) -- we could have thousands outside, but what we're doing is we're letting people come in as we can treat them. But every space on the floor, we have mattresses completely full (ph) day and night.
BROWN: I'm sure. You know, Sherry, Haiti already had a crisis in terms of caring for children. It's such a young population. I mean, this is a country of children. How worried are you that thousands more are now going to be forced to fend for themselves because of this?
S. BURNETTE: It's absolutely true. There are children that are going to be now homeless and abandoned and wandering in the street. Their parents dead or maybe covered under a pile of debris. And so that's where all of these humanitarian organizations have to step in and take these children in and take them into orphanages like ours. And I know that that's what people will do.
When we find children -- all of us working together in Haiti, we love this country. Every humanitarian organization that's here, we love this country. We love these people. They are wonderful people, and we're going to do whatever it takes to help these people to save the lives of the children, to help them any way that we can.
BROWN: Sherry and Bobby, thank you so much for everything you're doing. And best of luck to you both. We really appreciate your time.
S. BURNETTE: Thank you. (END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Among all the images of Haiti's devastation coming in to CNN, when we see one showing a successful rescue we have to share it with you. Just look at this today.
They dug for five hours to rescue a 13-year-old girl named Bea (ph). She's shaken, stunned, crying, but these are tears of relief.
We're going to have a lot more ahead throughout the night. Our team reporting from there.
"LARRY KING LIVE" bringing you a lot more coming up right now.
