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American Morning
Continuing Coverage of Haiti Earthquake Aftermath; A Catastrophe Beyond Compare
Aired January 15, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us on the Most News in the Morning on this Friday, the 15th of January. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
Here are the big stories we're going to be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
First, the earthquake victims are bodies piling up in the streets of Port-au-Prince. Rescue teams forced to use bulldozers to clear them all away. Meantime, the search continues for those who are still trapped in the rubble and alive.
ROBERTS: And amid all the death and destruction, incredible effort is still underway to save the young and old trapped beneath the rubble. Our cameras follow rescuers that can talk to victims, even hold their hands, but the question is: can they free them from the rubble in time?
CHETRY: Also, at the Port-au-Prince airport, a massive global relief effort is getting a bit jammed up. Cargo planes are being forced to circle over head or even turn back with no place to land. Food, water, and medicine is beginning to arrive. Much of it is piling up on the airport's tarmac. And it's been slow to reach the Haitians who need it.
But meantime, we did just get word that the USS Carl Vinson, the aircraft carrier, is now just 30 miles northwest of Port-au- Prince, right off the coast of Haiti, and they're already actually starting to launch helicopters. They say they're flying to meet with the general in charge and they're going to be able to arrange, to try to help in the rescue.
Also, President Obama is pledging $100 million in aid and also an unrelenting effort to help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to speak directly to the people of Haiti. Few in the world have endured the hardships that you have known. Long before this tragedy, daily life itself was often a bitter struggle. And after suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, have we somehow been forsaken. To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction: you will not for forsaken, you will not be forgotten.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Up to 6,000 U.S. troops should have boots on the ground in Haiti by tomorrow.
And the situation in Haiti right now, as we have been seeing, is mortifying. At the Port-au-Prince morgue, the dead are already being piled up in the parking lot because there's no more room and there's no more body bags. The Red Cross estimating the death toll at 50,000 right now. Rescuers are using bulldozers to clear the streets of corpses. Millions of survivors are desperate for water, food and medicine. And some of those supplies have arrived. The problem is, they're still not able to distribute it to the people who need it fast enough.
Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, found one facility where hundreds of people are lining up for help but some of them are dying before they can get any help. And we want to warn you that some of the images you are about to see are disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What you are looking at is a makeshift mortuary in one of the few hospitals that still up and running here in Port-au-Prince, if you can call it that. Over the past few hours, we've seen dozens of bodies come out of this mortuary, and taken to a truck where they're taken to another ground, bodies not even being identified.
So much of the attention is now focused over here. And patients who are alive are in desperate need of medical care.
I want to try and walk through here to give you a different perspective of what's happening in the aftermath of this natural disaster here in Haiti. Literally, dozens of patients are just lining the halls. Here, you have patients on cardboard boxes like this.
They have hardly any resources to care for patients like him. When I say no resources, I mean, no gauze, hardly any bandages and very few I.V.s. To get antibiotics, to get pain medication is a very difficult thing to do.
Lots of types of injuries here after an earthquake. You see a lot of crash injuries, you see penetrating injuries. You see this gal who we talked to earlier who has a broken leg, and they are literally using some ace rap and a board to try and keep her leg stable. It's jungle medicine. It is primitive medicine but it's medicine that can sometimes work, but hardly ever does.
You see as well more cardboard boxes over here. You see another splint, again, using a wooden board like that to try and offer a little bit of stability.
They are trying to take that off right now. They are trying to examine the leg. The man doing that is not a doctor but just his friend.
We keep walking through here, if we make our way out of the hospital -- again, one of the few hospitals up and running. You can just see how busy this place is.
This is where you want to be. This is an actual hospital.
Out here is where things get even more challenging. This is where you have areas of makeshift tents. Patients in these little cloth tents who are brought here because there's really nothing else that can be done for them. They have no resources at all, no one to take care to them. So, the health care personnel bring these patients out here to try and get them out of the way so they try to take care of more patients in the hospital.
You walked through here, you've probably never seen anything quite like this. Stretchers outside, under trees, I.V.s hanging from trees -- that is what is necessary here, that is what is happening here in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince.
Outside on the streets, patients know of this place and they keep coming here. Just take a look at the long waiting line. People are waiting to be seen. They're going to continue waiting for hours and days.
Even as I was telling you about the patients waiting inside, another truck pulls up, and as you can tell, this is the reality for a lot of people. These are -- these are two patients who are deceased. They are brought to the hospital as their loved ones simply looking for a place, something to do with the bodies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: It's just amazing to see the level of chaos there. They cannot treat the people. They have no place to put the dead. They are burying them in massive graves at this point. It's just an extraordinary situation.
CHETRY: I mean, it's disturbing to talk about the bodies and the corpses. And, I mean, you know, it -- but even more heartbreaking to see the people that are waiting help that could survive if they just had the basic necessities and they're not here.
ROBERTS: Yes. While reporting on the streets of Port-au- Prince, by the way, Sanjay was approached by some people who are just desperate to find a doctor. The patient was a 15-day-old girl with a head injury.
CHETRY: Yes, and the medical care, as we've been seeing, extremely scarce. So, Sanjay immediately did what he could do to help.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Hi, sweetie. Hi.
How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifteen days.
GUPTA: She's going to need some antibiotics. We're going to need to redress this wound. Let's go ahead and do that. (INAUDIBLE).
So, this is a -- this is what's happening out here in the streets of Port-au-Prince. This is a 15-day-old baby who was in an earthquake. Let me have you hold this for a second. It goes over the forehead.
So, she has no skull fracture. She does have a big laceration. It's going to need antibiotics, but she does not appear to have a head injury. I think she's going to be OK.
She is sucking her thumb. She's good. Here you go.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: I'll tell you, know, there's such a basic lack of things like gauzes, like antibiotics, pain medications, all those things that we're talking about. It's really, sometimes, kind of a hopeless or helpless situation -- patients are coming up. So, you try to do all you can, but it's so difficult, even for people who are trained to give care.
You know, now, we're starting to see more medical professionals coming in to Port-au-Prince, into Haiti. But we got to get those supplies here as well. That really seems to be the key.
And Anderson Cooper, my colleague, is here with me as well.
You've been to Haiti several times and you were one of the first reporters on the ground and this time around as well. What have you been seeing? How's it been going?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I mean, it's -- anywhere you go, you just see things which are horrific. I mean, the things that you were seeing yesterday, we were at the cemetery yesterday where they're now -- as John said earlier -- bringing bodies, literally dumping them into a pile and then shoving them, breaking into old crypts, they buried people above ground here like they do in New Orleans, and shoving the bodies into the crypts and they try to reseal them. No one's -- no names are being recorded, no photographs were taken.
In the tsunami, they were at least taking photographs, some of the corpses so that their loved one might be able to identify them even though that's very difficult after certain amount of time. But here, there's not that kind of organization.
So, all these people -- a lot of these people are just going to simply disappear, their loved ones are going to never going to see them again.
GUPTA: This is striking. You and I were just talking about -- even doing something simple, to get a little bit of a blood sample, to even take a little bit of a swab from inside the mouth and score those samples at one point they could be identified, it seems like it might be a possibility that's not happening here. These people -- I mean, they're really disappearing, live their whole lives and then just gone.
COOPER: Yes, it's a struggle to deal with the dead, it's a struggle, of course, every moment for the living. Yesterday, in the morning, I just went out with a little small DVD camera, I just had some extra time, and I wanted to show what was happening just in one of the public parks where hundreds of people are now congregating and living, and they have nowhere else to go. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Every hour is a struggle. Each day seems harder than the last. Early in the morning, we find people searching through a pile of concrete rubble.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a spot where they used to make sandals. And it's incredible that people are so desperate. They are looking for what remains of the sandals, so they can go either out to sell or wear. That's what's going on.
COOPER: Makeshift camps now fill public parks and open spaces.
(on camera): Hundreds of people are sleeping in this park. It's called the Central Park in downtown Port-au-Prince.
You see this in soccer fields. Anyplace there's an open field, a little bit of 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 plastic sheet like this. Some people, of course, have nothing at all.
There's not really anyplace 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 the few possessions they have, and they just start walking, searching for food, searching for water, searching for some day to get through the day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it is bad, man. It is bad. It's bad, too much for us here, man. Too much!
COOPER (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) says his restaurant and home have been destroyed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody is dead. So, all my (INAUDIBLE) are dead. So, I lost everything. What I got here is my bag. That's all. Nothing left. And all I got here is some quartered that I got left, nothing left. I'm broke. Everything -- I lost everything. That's all I got. It's all I got.
COOPER (on camera): One of the things that is so heartbreaking is all throughout the day people constantly are coming up to you and saying, you know, they have relatives in America, and they want you to somehow get a message to their loved one. And the message, it's always simple; it's never a complex message. It's always just, "I'm alive." "I'm alive and I'm OK."
(voice-over): Families seek shade wherever they can. On the streets, the dead are silently carted by.
Aid is arriving. Help is coming. For Eddie Jazzman (ph) it's already too late. He is 10-years-old and his father just died. All he has are these three small pictures. All he wants is to be with his father again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: They have to be very concerned in terms of bringing aid in and distributing it in the right way, because as we've seen in a lot of different situations, the crowd can form very quickly and the mood can change very fast, and as the desperation grows, you know, things can turn ugly, and even worse very, very quickly. So, they have to be ordinarily in how they do things here.
You know, we've seen instances of people, you know, handing out food or handing out bottles of water, and all of a sudden, it can very quickly kind of devolve into something else.
GUPTA: Yes. And it's also striking how strategic you have to be for the aid organizations. I think there's a tendency to sort of think, OK, we're going to send some t-shirts or boots and things like that, but being on the ground, you get a much better idea of what's really necessary in a place like this. A simple pressure dressing and antibiotic that costs about a nickel, as you were talking about yesterday, those things can make a difference. And what medicine -- we are not talking about weeks and months down the line, this is minutes and hours in terms of what is necessary.
COOPER: Yes. People's lives, I mean, it's a cliche, but they're literally hanging in a balance. I mean, there are people who are dying right now who do not need to die. I mean, it's a stupid form of death. You can die from a broken leg here that becomes infected and sepsis sets in and there is no one to amputate the leg. I mean, it's -- John, it's a hard thing to kind of wrap your mind around.
ROBERTS: Well, let's go back to Sanjay -- and then talk to us, Sanjay, about that 15-day-old baby that you treated there. You're -- you know, you are doctor, and you are trained clinically, and you're supposed to -- most doctors do remain sort of clinician (ph) in cases like that. But were so drawn to her. Why?
GUPTA: Well, I think that, you know, you're drawn to anybody in this sort of situation. I mean, I don't know, John, just a 15-day- old baby and she could lost her mother in this tragic accident. Her father was too distraught to leave the home, and it was her uncle walking through the streets and wailing and looking for some sort of help. I think anybody would be drawn to her.
I will tell you that I -- despite the fact that we are with limited resources here, we did not have a plan in terms of how to treat this girl with all different sorts of scenarios. You know, you always imagine the worse has happened to her, and whether or not you're going to try and drain blood from around her brain and what you're going to need to do.
But, yes, I mean, you want to try and -- I mean, putting on a press badge certainly is not a bar to your humanity. I think everybody wants to help.
ROBERTS: Right.
CHETRY: And, Anderson, you just referred to what you called the stupid form of death -- meaning that if people could just get these basic things, antibiotics that cost a couple of nickel, they'd be able to survive what they've already survived, the unimaginable, living through an earthquake, being able to get out, and now, they just need a little bit of first aid.
Why are we still seeing days later what seems to be this big disconnect between all of the supplies that they say are at there at the airport and have been rushed in, versus getting them to these clinics and these makeshift staging areas set up in Port-au-Prince?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, the frustration is obvious -- for everybody. For the relief workers who want to get the aid out. I mean, there's no doubt about it. You know, there's a bottleneck in the skies over Port-au-Prince trying to get the planes to land. There's a lot of planes trying to land and the airfield -- in an airport that has been damaged.
The port has been damaged. Chris Lawrence was out there before us. You cannot just offload supplies incredibly easily. Distribution, I mean, there is a lot of logistical concerns. You know, someone said to me today, actually my mom, I was able to talk to her on the satellite phone for the first time yesterday, and she said why aren't they just dropping aid in.
And I was talking about this with Chris Lawrence last night. He was pointing out look, you know, that can end up in people dying because people start pushing and shoving and there's a stampede and there' a riot. So you have to be very careful and this has to be done orderly when you are talking about this shear volume and number of people.
This is not like New Orleans where you had basically two locations, Superdome and Convention Center where people were congregating. There are groups of people all over the city, just living in any open space. They are getting desperate so it's an incredibly frustrating thing, and there is no infrastructure, Emery.
Even the best of times, you know, the central government here, if they are not incompetent or corrupt, you know, and I'm not saying the present government necessarily, but there are generations of the incompetence and corruption among the leaders. I mean some of the leaders of this country have been criminal. You know, they should be in jail not living in fancy villas in Europe, which is where some of them are living right now or in nice retirement in Panama.
So there is not an infrastructure here and so everybody is looking to the U.S., and everybody is looking to the U.N. In the coming days, as you guys have been reporting, we are hoping to see a big difference on the streets.
ROBERTS: It's an incredible story. Such compelling reporting from you gentlemen. Thank so much for joining us this morning. By the way for more reporting from Haiti, tune in to AC 360 10:00 Eastern tonight. Anderson will be tracking the first responders and their race against time to reach survivors.
And this weekend on CNN, catch a special "Sanjay Gupta MD", our Chief Medical Correspondent reporting from the scene of the devastation. "Sanjay Gupta MD" airs Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:30 Eastern.
CHETRY: We've been talking at the race to save those still trapped in the rubble. We're going to be showing you rescue workers who are working together to try to beat the clock. It 17 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no hospital, no electricity. Nothing. No food. No water. Nothing! There is too many people dying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was my father's house. So we lose it. My mother was -- now, we have somebody here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is some person inside the house. We can't find him. We don't have a loader to take them out.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. Our special coverage of the rescue efforts in Haiti continues Experts say the first 72 hours after a disaster like this are critical for saving survivors, yet there is still so much to do.
CHETRY: And so many lives to save. Our Susan Candiotti is live in Port-au-Prince. Susan, you were there when one of the many thousands of victims was saved. How did that happen? SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We see one case after another. Good morning, John and Kiran. You know for the third night in a row, more aftershocks, more tremors, more rattled nerves and more tumbling walls. And amidst the rubble, we did find a man whose situation appeared hopeless.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Beneath an opening of a five-story school, a 21-year-old man is pinned on his slide under a slab of cement, a life after 46 hours. Someone passes him our microphone.
What are you saying to yourself?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Myself? As I'm a Christian I say, Jesus, my life is in your hand.
CANDIOTTI: He says he's not in pain. A leg is stuck. Can you move at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can move my right hand and my left foot.
CANDIOTTI: A brave victim and brave rescuers. His own family risking their lives to free him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are trying to help me.
CANDIOTTI: Grade schoolers and teachers were also inside when the building collapsed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me, with a teacher, is fine. Me, I'm just like you, usually.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): But will his luck hold out? After an hour and a half a little more progress was made. These men using chisels and a blowtorch freed him up a little more. One of his hands is still caught. While all of this is going on, this is a very dangerous situation.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): He screams in agony, as a blowtorch scorches his skin. They pass him a bucket of water.
Please hang on. Please hang on. He does. A glorious moment in a sea of despair, among those still suffering, a woman on the other side of the building, a woman in pain.
Her 12-year-old son, Mark, was also in the same school. Could his be one of those voices still crying out? Her only child remains missing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (on camera): That mother heartbroken, and another relieved her son was pulled out a live, but you would think that family once he came out would be off and running with him. They weren't, when more voices were heard, that group of people, those rescue workers crawled right back inside that hole and kept looking for more possible survivors.
As much as we wanted to find out what happened to the young man that was pulled out, we were covering his rescue live and we couldn't disconnect and run after him. But our photographer and a member of our crew was able to run after him for a little bit of a distance. He was put into a pick up truck and they drove him to get some kind of medical help. We hope he did, but we have no idea and no way of finding out what happened to him.
CHETRY: Susan Candiotti for us again. The mother of the 12- year-old, any other news from her or does she still not know whether her son is alive in there?
CANDIOTTI: Still don't know. She went off looking. She has called everywhere. She has looked everywhere and she says she will not give up, understandably.
CHETRY: Absolutely, Susan Candiotti for us this morning in Port- Au-Prince. Thank you.
ROBERTS: The main prison was destroyed by the earthquake. A lot of convicts escaped and are roaming the streets. Some of them did not make it out though. Our Anderson Cooper takes us inside that prison just ahead stay with us. It's 24 minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. The window to save people who are buried alive under the rubble in Haiti is shrinking. The coming hours will be critical as we've been saying and keeping more earthquake survivors for becoming victims.
This morning we are focusing on the rescue efforts and the race to get supplies to the streets, which has hit a major snag this morning. Our Ivan Watson was on the ground in Port-Au-Prince where rescuers struggled to free one girl.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can her voice sometimes. There's an 11-year-old girl named (Aniaka San Luis). She is pinned underneath this rubble. And the volunteers here are snaking through a hose right now to give her some drinking water. She is about ten feet away and you can see the braids of this little girl's hair.
I talked with her. She is wearing glasses. She is crying, in a lot of pain right now and she's terribly scared. This little girl is -- it's kind of heart breaking to hear this. She is pinned there. The right leg is underneath the concrete. Her hands are free and her leg is free. She is talking to us. They are trying to give her drinking water now and have given her food already.
They discovered her today, two days after the earthquake. People trapped under the rubble probably did not survive. They are thinking about how to get her out. They are thinking about having to cut her leg. They have anaesthetics, but they don't have the blood to help her if they have to cut her leg off. They put a little bible next to her. You know, this is a pretty little girl. She has braids and black reading glasses and a chipped front tooth. Her mother is beside herself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATSON: And that was yesterday afternoon when we were on the scene there. And several hours later, the volunteers there succeeded in finding a small power saw and a small gas-powered generator. And they did succeed in cutting little Anaika free. And then we're trying to find medical treatment for her. Her leg is badly mangled. And they fear they may have to amputate it. And, of course, the hospitals here are overwhelmed. So finding good treatment is a big hurdle. Her ordeal is far from over.
And, Kiran, it's very important to note that that is just one dramatic case among many in this city. We went to several locations where ordinary volunteers without any training were struggling with their bare hands to pull out other survivors still pinned under the rubble - Kiran?
CHETRY: How much time do they realistically think that they have to try to get more of these people out?
WATSON: We were speaking with some rescue officers from Fairfax, Virginia. They do say that this window is closing. That these first hours are critical right now. And those rescue officers were operating at one hotel, a five-story building that collapsed.
They were digging, trying to get a tunnel through to a woman named Sarah, who was trapped somewhere near where the hotel bar had been. They communicated with her, but they didn't have direct contact with her. They needed to dig a tunnel to get through, and they said those hours would be very critical, trying to get water to somebody who's been trapped for that long, at least 48 hours. We don't yet know the status of that woman, unfortunately, because the telecommunication system is in complete disarray -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Such challenges out there. Ivan Watson for us this morning. Thank you.
ROBERTS: There were reports right after the earthquake hit that the main prison in Haiti's capital had collapsed, and that all the inmates got out.
Well, Anderson Cooper went there to get the whole story. And as you will see, some of those inmates did not escape.
He joins us now live again from Port-Au-Prince.
What was it like visiting that prison yesterday, Anderson?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I mean, of all the things that happened in the wake of this earthquake, the idea that suddenly you have some 4,000 prisoners escaping from the jail right in downtown Port-Au-Prince. I mean, it kind of boggles the mind. It's the last thing that this much beleaguered city needs. It's the last thing that the people of Port-Au-Prince need.
Take a look what I found at the prison.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): At the prison in downtown Port-au-Prince, the inmates have escaped. The rubble is all that remains.
COOPER (on camera): We heard the prison was destroyed. We didn't realize we'd find the door wide open.
COOPER (voice-over): Inside, prisoners' possessions are strewn about. Signs of overcrowding are everywhere. This jail was meant to hold some 1200 inmates, but at the time of the quake there were more than 4500.
COOPER (on camera): We've been told that there were three dead bodies here. It turns out there's actually four -- four men. It looks like they were crushed by -- by falling debris. There's actually dried blood all here on the floor.
We just saw a -- a young man, a little boy, who was looking for his brother, looking at the bodies, but a lot of these people may never be identified. I mean, they're already swollen beyond recognition. And it's not clear how soon these men will be collected and buried.
A lot of people, I think, in Port-Au-Prince will simply just disappear. Their bodies will never be identified. Their families will never know what really happened to them.
(voice-over): People take whatever supplies they can find. Businesses closed, there is still money to be made.
(on camera) You can see the walls of the prison are still intact. So it's not as if the entire prison collapsed and the prisoners were able to escape. We're not exactly sure what happened here, but a U.N. source tells us they believe the prisoners actually rioted after the earthquake, took over the facility from the guards, and then were able to escape from a variety of different routes.
We found this rope, which has been tied around a post. It -- and then thrown over the side of this prison wall. It goes down about 30 or 40 feet. So, clearly, inmates were using this rope to try to escape, and all along these walls there's bloody hand prints, streaks of blood.
(voice-over) With Haiti's police stretched thin, there's little hope of rounding up all the inmates any time soon. This man is the prison warden.
(on camera) How big a concern is it that all these prisoners are now out there?
(voice-over) "When you have criminals, bandits, assassins who terrorize the population," he says, "and we have all these types here, it's a big problem for the country."
Another big problem for this problem-prone country; the last thing they need to deal with in these difficult days.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So the prison is closed down here in Port-Au-Prince. So even if they, you know -- if trouble begins to rise and they apprehend people, arrest people in Port-Au-Prince, they can't be brought to that prison. They have to be brought somewhere else in the country. Just another thing that authorities here have to deal with.
ROBERTS: Anderson, you've been to so many terrible places around the world, seen such destruction and inhumanity. How does this compare to what you have seen before?
COOPER: You know, I've never seen something so concentrated in a major city like this. The city of some two to three million people. You know, what the actual death toll is going to be, I have no way of knowing, and I don't think anybody does. In fact, I think, it may never be known. Because right now, they are just burying people in mass graves, and they're not even recording how many people are being buried.
It's gotten to that situation. The facilities, the hospitals, as Sanjay have shown you, cemeteries are simply overwhelmed. This is -- you know, this is really bad. I don't like to compare human tragedy on a scale, but it's -- you know, there's so many -- no matter where you go on any given day, no matter what street you walk down or drive down, no matter what part of town you go to, people are in desperate, desperate need. And I know it starts to all sound the same after a certain amount of time.
But for the people out there right now, you know, today is not the same as it was yesterday. And it's not the same it was the day before. In some way, you know, as it becomes more mundane misery. It makes it all the worse, because the shock is wearing off for a lot of the people here, and what they have loss is becoming clear.
ROBERTS: They certainly been doing a terrific job in bringing us all those stories.
Anderson, thanks so much. We will see you a little bit later on today.
CHETRY: We're going to take a quick break.
When we come back, we're going to meet a family. They adopted their son from Haiti. The problem right now is they cannot get him back right now because of the earthquake. We're going to talk to them about Ames, and what they think is going to happen in the next couple of days as they try to bring their son home to the U.S.
Thirty-seven minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's now 40 minutes past the hour.
Ground zero of the disaster is in the Caribbean, but its impact certainly being felt across the world. And here in the U.S. as well as those desperately try to reach their loved ones in Haiti.
Aaron and Jamie Ivey adopted 4-year-old Amos. They were actually in the process of trying to get them out of the country when the earthquake struck. Now what they know is that Amos is safe, which is the good news. When they'll be able to actually get him to the states is another story. And they join us now.
Aaron and Jamie Ivey from their Austin, Texas, home. As well as their other children with you. We had Caden in the middle, Dican and Story. He's sitting on your lap this morning, Jamie.
Thanks for being with us, all of you.
JAMIE IVEY, ADOPTED SON STUCK IN HAITI: That's right. Thank you.
AARON IVEY, ADOPTED SON STUCK IN HAITI: Thank you. Thanks.
CHETRY: So you went through the full adoption process, almost done. There was a little bit of paperwork. When were you supposed to get Amos?
A. IVEY: Well, we are at the last stage of adoption in Haiti. We are in a place called MOI, which is right before you get your American passport and the Visa to come home. So we've been working on his adoption for about two years. So we were hoping in the next couple of months we would get information that he could, you know, get his passport and his Visa to come home.
So, right now, we don't know where that stands. That's one of our big fears right now, with adoption, just like a lot of families that are in the same sort of situation we are in.
CHETRY: Absolutely. And we are seeing some pictures right now. We just saw a couple of pictures. He's adorable. And I'm sure that you are, you know, waiting for word.
What have you heard, Jamie, about how Amos is doing, where he was when the earthquake hit? Any details about what's going on with him right now.
J. IVEY: Well, first, we didn't hear anything for two or three hours, and that was really hard just waiting, not knowing. And then finally, we saw -- I think it was via Facebook. The lady that he lives with posted that they are OK. And that was just the best that we could hear.
Then later we got an e-mail that he was there with a nanny and another little boy and he was pretty freaked out, to say the least. I'm sure like every other child when this happened. So that was hard to hear that he was there, scared, and we were here.
CHETRY: Right. Yes. I mean, all you want to do is wrap your arms around your child when they're scared. And knowing that you can't must be devastating.
J. IVEY: Exactly. Right. Right.
CHETRY: Also, as I understand it, you guys have been alternating going to Haiti for frequent trips so that, you know, he can be familiar with you and know you. When do you think you're going to be able to get back there to get him?
A. IVEY: Not real sure yet. We were going -- one of us was going every other month or so just to visit and hangout. But, you know, we have some friends that are missionaries there. And, of course, we want to go. I mean, if we could be on a plane today and go hangout with him we absolutely would.
But, you know, they've really suggested that if you are not a doctor, you don't go to Port-Au-Prince right now, because that's the main help that they need right now are people who are doctors and can help out with some of those medical needs. So we're just kind of playing it cool and waiting, and helping advocate for what is going on in Haiti. And try to love on Amos through e-mails and praying for him, and teaching our kids what that's like to wait and to long for something. So we'd love to go today, but we just can't. We realize we can't.
CHETRY: And what is your connection to Haiti, and your interest in adoption there?
J. IVEY: Well, I visited Haiti a couple of years ago, just on a mission trip. And just really seeing the urgent need there, you know, the poorest country on this side of the world. Our youngest son, Dican, we adopted him when he was born, domestically. So we just have a heart for adoption, just providing a family to a child in need. And there are lots of kids in Haiti that need families. And so that's kind of how we got there.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Right. And you were able to adopt Story. You brought her home last November?
A. IVEY: Right.
J. IVEY: She came home October 23rd of this year -- I mean, last year, yes. So she is new here. And we had been working on her adoption the same amount of time as our son, Amos.
CHETRY: It's not been easy, and the need is great. As I understand it, there are more than a million -- 1.2 orphans in Haiti that need adopting. And this is even before the quake struck.
I mean, what are you picturing as we move forward about the need there for these children that many of them will have lost parents in this tragedy?
A. IVEY: Yes, that is definitely heavy on our hearts. And, you know, Amos is really just a snapshot of this bigger picture in Haiti. Pre-earthquake, there are 1.2 million orphans, like you said. And, you know, just thoughts of what happens to that number after something like this is heavy on our hearts for sure. That's why we want to do whatever we can to advocate on behalf of orphans specifically in Haiti. And, you know, we just have to wait and see what happens in the next couple of weeks with the adoption process in Haiti and see how that progresses.
CHETRY: Right now, he's at the Real Hope for Haiti Rescue Center that's just outside of Port-Au-Prince. And I know that's where you're able to communicate with him.
A. IVEY: Right.
J. IVEY: That's right.
CHETRY: Hope you are able to get there and bring him back soon.
Please, keep us posted. We wish you the best of luck. And we are glad that you got good news regarding Amos being OK in light of the tragedy unfolding.
J. IVEY: Yes.
A. IVEY: Thank you.
J. IVEY: Thank you.
CHETRY: Aaron Ivey and Jamie Ivey.
A. IVEY: Thank you very much.
J. IVEY: Thank you very much.
CHETRY: Thanks for joining us this morning.
ROBERTS: What a great story.
CHETRY: Yes. You know, they'll be able to -- they said, it's thanks to Facebook and e-mail updates that they have been able to keep in touch. And know that the people that are watching him, the caregivers say he is OK and that they are OK.
ROBERTS: That's true. Nice to hear some happy stories coming out of this.
Coming up on 45 minutes after the hour, three more aftershocks reported in Haiti. When will the threat end? Rob Marciano is tracking it.
He's also got an interesting satellite analysis of the damage in Port-Au-Prince. Stay tune for all of that, coming your way in just a couple of minutes. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: What a great story.
CHETRY: Yes, and who --- you know, and they'll be to -- they said it's thanks to Facebook really...
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: ... and e-mail updates that they have been able to keep in touch and know that the people that are watching him, the caregivers say he's ok and that they're ok.
ROBERTS: That's true. It's nice to hear some happy stories coming out of this.
So coming up in 45 minutes after the hour, three more aftershocks reported in Haiti. When will the threat end?
Rob Marciano is tracking it. He's also got an interesting satellite analysis of the damage in Port-au-Prince. Stay tuned for all that coming your way in just a couple of minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): We heard songs of praise, we heard gun shots from this crowd as well, we heard dogs. It is a mix of humanity seeking safety and seeking solace, trying to get through one more night in Port-au-Prince without their homes and with each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Many survivors are staying in parks and in the streets avoiding damaged buildings because they are afraid of the aftershocks that come every few hours.
Let's bring our Rob Marciano in the Extreme Weather Center this morning in Atlanta. Any idea when these aftershocks and tremors -- at least the frequency that we see them at now -- may begin to subside?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, we're starting to see less of them. And so the frequency is definitely going down. The last 24 hours we've only seen two. They have been pretty strong upwards of 4.7 to 4.8 but the good news is we're starting to see them slow down.
But the bad news is they can pop-up, you know, in weeks, months and in some cases in the larger ones, for years. So that threat is certainly not over.
And this map highlights that. We don't see any red. Where we do see red is this interesting map. Let's lay it over some Google Earth imagery. Basically what you're seeing here is the amount of damage. And it's a combination of satellite imagery, aerial photography and the reports on the ground just where the most intense damage was. And as you can --- as you would think the red being the most dramatic, the most widespread there, the orange being sporadic.
The good news with the --- that the airport is not in the more widespread area. So that scenario certainly could have been a lot worse. What's also getting better is the -- are the flights coming in to Haiti right now. At this time, yesterday there pretty was a ground stop because they couldn't handle the flow.
But right now we're seeing a number. And these are all flights that are coming from the states into Haiti and coming from Puerto Rico into Haiti. And we've got one, two, three, four, five, six --- a half dozen of them and with more certainly to come on the way today. And the weather should be fine for the next several days. Warm during the day and relatively cool at night --John and Kiran.
ROBERTS: Rob, thanks so much.
CHETRY: All right. Well, still ahead, we're going to talking a little bit more about the airport at Haiti and how overwhelmed they are about the planes as Rob was alluding too as well. They can't land and they can't leave in some cases. Hopefully this situation is about to change and change quickly.
The Air Force in there, the U.S. Air Force, is trying to get some sort of resemblance of order on the ground of the Port-au-Prince Airport. We're going to have much more in just a moment.
It's 50 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Waiting for Preval, our president. He cannot do nothing. The president is in the airport. Why does he do nothing for us? But now we do our best.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Right now in Port-au-Prince, getting help to the desperate, to the dying Haitians is a daunting challenge. The airport is still pretty chaotic; it's nearly paralyzed by the sheer number of supply planes trying to get in and the enormous crowds of people trying to get out.
Our Jason Carroll is live in Port-au-Prince. And Jason, update us on the situation right now.
As we understood, the U.S. Air Force was coming in there and trying to establish at least some control system and get things moving in a more orderly fashion. How has that been working?
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's slow going. I mean, there is just no way around it. I mean, yesterday we spoke to a military representative who said that they had done what they could in terms of trying to direct, the Air Force taking over for the air-traffic control tower, which was damaged during the quake.
So they are trying to do what they can to navigate all of the planes that are coming in. It's a great, great challenge for the folks here who are on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: There were two groups of people here at Port-au-Prince International Airport: hundreds of desperate trying to get out and the grateful few, like Danny Abraham's family, who managed to escape on military airlifts.
DANNY ABRAHAM, AMERICAN EVACUEE: We lost our house. Thank God nobody was hurt. And we are trying to get them away.
CARROLL: Families with young children and the elderly given priority. Virginia Cary was hurt during the quake.
VIRGINIA CARY, AMERICAN EVACUEE: I knew I was going to pass out. And I guess I did.
CARROLL: Mrs. Cary and her husband Lovel are 81 years old, both from Cleveland, Tennessee, here for a church conference.
CARY: And a wall collapsed and a car killed one of my men in the front. We were in the backseat.
CARROLL: And so the plan is to get you on one of these planes and get you out of here, is that right?
LOVEL CARY, AMERICAN EVACUEE: We hope. I hope I can find the man that has our passports.
CARROLL: Some confusion to be expected. Rescue crews saying this is still the early stage of the evacuation.
Throughout the day there's a steady stream of planes coming here at the airport. They have relief supplies that are coming from all over the world: from Belgium, from Brazil, from Miami, from Spain, from Iceland; just about any place you can imagine.
What happens is as soon as they get those relief supplies off of the planes, then you got evacuees who are sitting here at the airport anxiously waiting to get on those flights.
You have so many different countries, trying to do what they can to help. How do you coordinate that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a very difficult challenge and here, it's no different.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just get a little bit of separation. Get the hand -- I know it seems stupid...
CARROLL: Outside the airport, a crowd of those still trying to get out continues to grow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nothing more so I wait.
CARROLL: So you wait?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I'm going to wait.
CARROLL: Many here just as frustrated as the U.S. State Department representative just trying to control the crowd.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to have a security problem here if these people don't get in order.
CARROLL: What kind of information would you like to get out there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, because the situation is fluid. What we have is, these people are waiting here and we have to try to deliver a service to them.
CARROLL: many say they would like to stay here and take their chances, instead of going back to the city where help still seems very far away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: And Kiran, you heard from that state department representative who was talking about the challenges that he is facing there
And just to put this into a little bit more perspective for you, when you see the people out here on the streets of Port-au-Prince, many of them obviously no homes, no food, very little water, some of them just with the clothes on their back. Well, imagine if you are now showing up at the airport and literally all you have are the clothes on your back, because your passport or your papers, whatever you needed back in your home, which was destroyed, and you can't get access to it. But you still want to get out of Haiti.
It's a very difficult situation that the state department is facing here and the other officials who are trying to navigate all of these people out of the city -- Kiran.
CHETRY: It is such a huge challenge. Jason will be updated on it throughout the day. Thank you so much.
We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
It's 57 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: New developments out of Port-au-Prince, Haiti to tell you about this morning. The USS Carl Vinson now just miles off the coast; helicopters are being launched to help with relief efforts. By tomorrow, 5,000 to 6,000 troops will also be on the ground to help. But the biggest obstacles now, the capital's airport barely functioning and most streets are still blocked with rubble.
CHETRY: But, you know, the situation is going to change throughout the day and CNN is going to be updating the situation constantly in Haiti. We had actually created a special section as well on our Web site, Cnn.com/Haiti. You can go there for information. You can also go to find out where you can help by going to cnn.com/impact.
And again, we love to see your images and hear your reports at cnnireport.com. And you can always stay connected with CNN for the latest on Haiti on Twitter; it's #haiticnn.
And that's going to do it for us this morning. Thanks so much for being here with us today on "American Morning". We'll see you back here on Monday.
ROBERTS: Our special coverage of the earthquake in Haiti continues in the "CNN NEWSROOM" and here's Heidi Collins. Hi, Heidi.
