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American Morning

Japan's Nuclear Crisis; A Criminal Past; Clinton Meets Libyan Opposition Leader; Some Geologists Speculate West Coast May Experience Large Earthquake Soon; American Located in Japan

Aired March 15, 2011 - 07:59   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Ordering evacuations after radiation escapes from a damaged reactor. A lot of new fears this morning in Japan as the struggle to contain a nuclear disaster continues on this AMERICAN MORNING. Welcome. It is Tuesday, March 15th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. Here is the latest for you on the nuclear crisis in Japan. It's taking a very dangerous turn this morning. Four reactors at the Daiichi nuclear station at Fukushima have been badly damaged by explosions or fire.

Three are in some stage of melting and the last 24 hours, there's been a new explosion, one reactor and a fire in another. That fire in reactor number four is out, but it burned for hours sending dangerous radiation spewing into the air.

Japan's prime minister warning everyone within a 20-mile radius of the plant to stay indoors and close their windows. He says there's a very high risk that further radioactive releases are coming and the big concern this morning, how much radiation is in the atmosphere? How far will it travel if the wind changes direction -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Those are a lot of questions this morning. We certainly want to illustrate it a little bit more for you so we can understand what we're talking about.

This is the Daiichi plant in general. These are the four different reactors. Right now, we know there's been trouble at all of them, including reactor one, two, three and four. But one of the things we do want to be able to show you -- this is an interesting visual so you can sort of see exactly how it's happening and let me hit "play" just so I can get it going right now, so we can see what's going on here.

This is coming to us from NHK, which is Japanese television. And it sort of shows what exactly we're dealing with.

This is what is supposed to happen: water pumps in. It cools the reactor rods in the reactor core. After the tsunami, unfortunately, that power source became lost. What they did do? Well, they went to their diesel-powered backup reactor. The diesel pumps kicked in and eventually they failed.

What they did after that was go to their battery pumps. But unfortunately the battery pumps only continued working for a number of hours and they also went dead. Why that happened is still not exactly known. The problem is as the water source slowly starts to end, you have the buildup of steam that takes place. What they were trying to do to avert this is continue to pump seawater into the reactor.

But, again, those -- the sea water was getting pumped in for a time doing its job. Also another problem in that, when that seawater, of course, starts to evaporate, that's when you get the problem when these fuel rods, again, become exposed, when there's an explosion, which is happened at a couple of those reactor site and then that radioactive cloud is then dispersed into the air.

The temperature inside of this can go to nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, of course, enough to melt those fuel rods. The big question today, Christine, again, is whether or not the enclosures will hold and whether they'll be able to continue getting cool water in there to eventually get these fuel rods cooled down sufficiently and then getting rid of the risk.

ROMANS: All right. And as we continue to ask and get answers, one by one to these questions about the plant, there's also the concern about radiation exposure. We want to bring in Jim Walsh. He's an international security analyst and CNN contributor. He's also a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jim, just from what we've seen here now, you've got four reactors at this -- at this plant with some level of damage or problem. Is there -- is there any hope that the worst we have seen now -- and now from here on out, we're going to start solving -- they're going to start solving these problems and we're going to turn this thing around?

JIM WALSH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think there is some hope, Christine. At the same time, one worries that you might have a problem. And you can deal with a problem, but when one turns to two, two to three, and now, three to four problems, all at the same time, while you're withdrawing workers, the number of people who can be working on these problems, you know, you begin to wonder at what point do people become overwhelmed or the system becomes overwhelmed?

But I don't think we should, you know, assume the doomsday scenario here at all. If they can cool each reactor to a point where the heat given off by the fuel rods is lower and lower each day, then they'll be able to manage it. Now, they're going to have to manage it for a while, but that is an attainable goal.

If they can secure -- excuse me -- the spent fuel ponds at each reactor, make sure -- making sure that there's water in all of those ponds and they are not exposed to the air, then they can have success. But the question is: can they bring enough resources and deal with all of these problems that are all in play at the same time and be able to meet that goal? And we just don't know the answer to that.

Every time I wake up in the morning, you know, I turn on the computer and overnight, a new problem has arisen. So, it's definitely a big challenge that they're looking at.

CHETRY: Is it as simple as continuing to find water sources and the mechanism to bring that cool water to those rods? If it is that simple, why are they unable to make that happen at this point?

WALSH: You know, it seems simple in theory, just put the water in and it cools down.

CHETRY: Right.

WALSH: But it turns out in practice, like most things, it's more complicated to do than it is to describe. One of the problems, of course, is that these -- the reactor vessel, it's filled with pressure. And so, when you're trying to inject new water into the system -- well, there's already pressure inside and so it's resisting that pressure.

They have had problems with valves that wouldn't open. They have had problems with meters that have failed. So, you know, when you get down to all of the little intricate details of what has to be done in order to make it work, you can have missteps or problems or even human error -- you know, these people have been working 24/7 for four days now. All of these things make it more difficult to do.

ROMANS: Jim, you know, it's almost unimaginable. This is a country that became the second -- until recently, the second largest economy in the world in the years after World War II. Its modern identity forged out of a nuclear crisis for this country and now, here it's facing a nuclear crisis and its -- and its position in the world. It's just so interesting to me that here it goes again -- you got an elderly population, 20 percent of the country is graying, and many of those people remember a day when they were very afraid of radiation and nuclear fallout. And here it is again.

I mean, just from a human angle, isn't that interesting?

WALSH: It is. And it's also heartbreaking because I'm sure -- you know, we all talk about the physical consequences and that's understandable. You know, is someone exposed to radiation? Will this cause cancer or some other health problem down the line?

What we tend not to talk about are the significant mental health aspects to this. If you live through an experience like this 50 years ago and then, suddenly, this is happening to you, you know, no doubt -- and you're already -- you know, maybe you're homeless, maybe you've lost a husband or a wife, you're in a shelter, you've lost all of your belongings and then these memories about radiation or fears that you might be exposed, this is a tremendous burden for people to face, particularly if they are a vulnerable population.

If you're a child, if you're an expectant mother, you worried about your children who are going to be born in another couple of months. If you already have preexisting mental health problems, maybe you're prone to depression or whatever, you know, there is a real mental health dimension to this that no one is talking about, and I'm sure they are suffering there. You know, they may not be bleeding, but there's a lot of suffering.

CHETRY: You bring up a good point. And it certainly is the uncertainty right now. It seems that we're at this point where, you know, it could go either way and no one is sure how this is going to end, which is even more terrifying.

Jim Walsh, CNN contributor, international security analyst -- thanks so much for joining us this morning.

WALSH: Thank you.

CHETRY: Meanwhile, American troops are being warned about low levels of radiation. The USS George Washington, which is at a naval base 200 miles south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, says it has detected radioactivity. And while they stress there's no danger to the public, people at the base are being urged to limit outdoor activities.

Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live in Akita, Japan.

Sanjay, good morning. Clearly, when you're hearing things like "stay indoors," "limit your outdoor activities," it shows you the deep concern spreading across this country.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. There's no question that, you know, if you take all of these things in aggregate, all of the information you've been hearing, that this is not a good thing overall. You're adding more radiation to the population over there.

You talk about this 200 miles away, 175 miles away radiation, making it that far at very low levels. Now, you need to put it in context, which I think you've been doing. And that is that the very low levels, it could be similar to taking a transcontinental flight. It could be similar to getting a chest X-ray, for example. So, these levels as they stand now are not potentially problematic.

Even the highest levels that were reported, 400 millisieverts, you need to remember the term, but 400 millisieverts was the highest reading that was given today inside the plant. Once that radiation starts to leave the plant, leaves the gate, starts to decay, the levels are going to be much, much lower.

So, as things stand now, these levels are much higher than what they usually are, but as far as impact on human health, physical health, there's not a lot, I think probably to be concerned about. The question is: are the levels going to go higher? Is there going to be greater problems down the road? And that's where the focus is right now from everybody that we're talking to.

ROMANS: Right. Sanjay Gupta in Akita, Japan -- thank you, Sanjay.

CHETRY: So, we're talking about the radioactive material being released into the air, at least, you know, in some form and fashion in the northeast part of Japan. Well, because of this, wind direction, of course, becomes a critical part of the equation.

We're going to meteorologist Jennifer Delgado right now who is in Atlanta with us -- to talk more about this.

Of course, the concerns: will it blow toward population centers or will it blow out to sea?

JENNIFER DELGADO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. And, you know, Kiran, over the last several hours, we've actually seen the wind forecast and the wind direction blowing towards populated areas.

Now, I want to show you in this graphic right now, and here's Fukushima Daiichi plant. And you can see the winds have been coming in the east/northeasterly direction. We're dealing with an onshore flow, exactly what we don't want to deal with.

But the problem is, this is going to last as we through the overnight hours. By tomorrow, we are going to see an improvement as the storm system is going to be pushing through, but what it's going to do is it's going to shift those winds around from that northwesterly direction and that is going to be a big improvement, because the wind flow is going to be offshore. So, you can see any of that radioactive material is going to be pushed off into the Pacific and those winds are actually going to be picking up tomorrow and they're going to be quite gusty. So, that's also going to help with mixing out some of that radioactive material in the lower levels.

I want to show you on the satellite right now. You can see more of those clouds working in. Well, in addition to the winds, we're also going to be looking at the potential for some cold rain, as well as some snow moving into northern parts of Japan and that means even for those areas, we're talking for the earthquake-struck region as well as the tsunami-struck region, they're going to be dealing with the potential of some rain. That includes Sendai. Mainly, they're going to be looking at a potential for rain.

But even some of those locations, say, about 10 miles out toward the west and those higher level elevations, they're going to be dealing with some snow. In addition to that, temperatures are going to be dropping below freezing and you can see in the forecast, it's not looking real good, especially when you don't have clothes and you don't have a home -- Kiran, Christina?

ROMANS: All right. Thank you so much, Jennifer Delgado.

CHETRY: All right. Well, as concerns about Japan's nuclear crisis deepens, search and rescue operations continue following this massive earthquake and tsunami. And as we've seen before, like in Haiti, it's a race against time to find survivors in many areas where the destruction is simply everywhere. The number of dead now: more than 2,700.

But a small miracle also happened in Japan. A 70-year-old woman was found in the rubble alive 96 hours after the quake hit.

ROMANS: Good to know there are still rescues happening.

The Japanese stock market is down once again as the crisis in Japan deepens. At one point, the Nikkei was down more than 14 percent. It recovers slightly. But it's still, it was down more than 10 1/2 percent. You guys, that is a huge rout, two-day decline for this rivaling the crash of 1987.

CHETRY: Yes. You say it's officially a bear market in two days?

ROMANS: Yes, it's just a very violent move for the stock market.

Right now, U.S. stocks are on track for a big sell-off as well. Dow futures down by more than 200 points. Yesterday, the Dow was down by 51 points. The NASDAQ down 14. The S&P 500 down almost eight.

But my sources this morning are saying that it looks like there's an awful lot of selling interest, a lot of interest to sell U.S. stocks and continue the selling of stocks. European stocks are also down. So, we'll see how long it lasts and how deep it goes.

CHETRY: And still ahead, Japan's earthquake, surviving it. We're going to be joined by one man who lived to tell the tale and managed to get some amazing video along the way.

ROMANS: And a developing story: reports of a private meeting in Paris between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and one of Libya's opposition leaders. We'll have that for you as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Fourteen minutes past the hour. This is amateur video coming into us from the town of Kamaishi. It shows just the sheer power behind the tsunami that hit Japan, wiping and pushing buildings, as that water just flows through, destroying everything in its path.

ROMANS: But Japan's earthquake survivors coming forward to share their stories, the survival amidst all of that rubble and fury and it's the stunning images they capture that put us right in the middle of the path of destruction.

CHETRY: Yes, it's amazing. I mean, as we've said, a country of 127 million, this devastating earthquake, something we have not seen ranks in the top five ever and to know that right now, about less than 3,000 people lost their lives. Now, that number is expected to grow, but it is amazing how many people made it through.

Brian Barnes is one of them. He was in Otsuchi when the chaos unfolded. He managed to climb the higher ground just in time to film these giant waves crashing ashore. He joins us from L.A. That's where he landed last night. I know that you're eventually trying to make your way back home to Florida, but you're glad to be on solid ground, though, here in the United States today. What was it like to live through that, Brian?

BRIAN BARNES, FILMED TSUNAMI HIT IN OTSUCHI: There's not a whole lot of words that I could put to put that into perspective. We were right on the coast when the earthquake hit, and we didn't really have a whole lot of time to get out of the way from the wave. And, you know, we were foreigners and visiting there. I didn't know the roads or anything. So, by all means, it's quite a miracle that I'm alive.

ROMANS: When did you realize that something terrible was coming? I mean, were you scrambling up the hill? You grabbed your equipment? I mean, how did you know to move higher?

BARNES: Well, a few days before this actually happened, we had a 7.3 earthquake in the same town and that resulted in a 53 centimeter tsunami. So, I just kind of was going on a gauge that if what I felt, you know, 40 hours previous to this was a 7.3, which in comparison was extremely minor to what we experienced with the 9.0, you know, I just knew that we were in really bad situation at that point.

CHETRY: Right. So, you basically trusted your intuition which turned out to be right. You managed to get up the hill and got these pictures. How soon after you made it up the hill did that that tsunami actually hit where you were?

BARNES: It was within ten minutes. I would put it at somewhere about eight.

CHETRY: That's just amazing. So, you're looking down from this hill and what were you seeing unfold before you?

ROMANS: We're looking at a picture right now of what looks like a ship or a small freighter being gobbled up, bobbing around and just being gobbled up by the wave.

BARNES: Yes. These are hunting boats. They're dolphin hunting boats and that's what we were there monitoring this dolphin hunt. And they're pretty large ships that work out of that harbor and, you know, a wave came in there and, I mean, it just -- it was beyond comprehensible. I mean, the video describes it, but, you know, how do you put words behind a video like that?

CHETRY: Well, I mean, and you know firsthand. You were with Oscar winning director of the "Cove," Ric O'Barry. You guys were there as part of this volunteered group because of your mission about saving the dolphins. So, you understand the power of pictures in illustrating, you know, a story, basically, and bringing it out to the people.

BARNES: Right. And, you know, the story today is what the Japanese people are going through, and the videos that we brought home and the other videos that are coming out like the video you showed from Kamaishi which is within less than ten miles from where I shot my video at. The coastline is absolutely destroyed over there, and a lot of people are really hurting and need some help.

ROMANS: This tree -- we're looking at a picture that you took before we just saw briefly that this tree seems just to be swallowed up by the rising water. How quickly did the water rise? And did you at ever, any point, think that, oh, my God, it's just going to keep coming?

BARNES: Well, it was kind of a difficult thing to gauge because there was a firefighter that was up on the hill. He was one of the -- there were only six or seven Japanese people on that hill with us, including two firefighters, and they climbed the hill up in the road. The road was probably at about 40 or 50 feet, and the hill went up maybe another 40 or 50 feet.

And when the water started coming up, the firefighters, they went to higher ground. And so, at that point, I thought, well, maybe they know what they're doing. And of course, they did, but I was kind of caught in the moment.

ROMANS: So, you took their lead and went even higher up the hill?

BARNES: No. I stood where I was at.

ROMANS: Wow.

CHETRY: Well, it's amazing. You certainly got amazing pictures as you acknowledged you're lucky that you made it through. Just an unbelievable tragedy. Brian Barnes, thanks so much for joining us this morning. I hope you make it back home soon.

BARNES: Yes. And thank you.

CHETRY: All right. Thanks, Brian.

ROMANS: OK. A dark past comes to light in the case of the tour bus accident. It's made headlines here in New York. It killed 15 people. We're going to tell you why the driver never should have been able to get his license -- his commercial license, in the first place.

CHETRY: The disaster in Japan could soon affect how much you pay for certain electronics as well as other things here at home. Twenty minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-three minutes past the hour. Bad driving, a bad driving record and even worse criminal one. Officials are now saying that the driver behind that devastating accident on the New York City tour bus should never have been able to get his commercial license. Police say that Ophadell Williams serve prison time for manslaughter as well as grand larceny.

He was also caught driving with a suspended license as recently as 2004. Williams claims that he swerved to avoid a truck. Fifteen people died. He has not been charged, but he is expected to be questioned again today by federal investigators in this case.

ROMANS: Meanwhile, another tour bus tragedy to tell you about. This time, on the New Jersey turnpike. A bus crashed last night killing two people, including the driver. Dozens more were injured. Police say the Super Luxury Tours driver hit the median and struck part of an overpass before smashing into an embankment. No word yet on what caused that accident.

CHETRY: And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meeting privately last night with one of the leaders of Libya's opposition. She's not publicly commenting on what was discussed when she sat down in Paris with Muhammad Jebril. Secretary Clinton is attending G-8 Summit in France.

ROMANS: Now, as Japan begins to access its recovery, there's concern about how it's going to affect the country's high-tech industry. Carmen Wong Ulrich joins us for that -- Carmen.

CARMEN WONG ULRICH, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: And a big industry it is. A very big. Now, today, we're going to see the effects of the crisis in Japan on the prices of one various essential product that we all use in our pockets and in our offices. Memory chips. Last week, an eight gigabyte chip went on the spot or in the cash market for $7.30.

But now, after the shutdown of several plants, especially by Sony and Toshiba, the prices already up to $10. That's reflecting concerns at a global supply shortage could be looming as Japan's supplies over 20 percent of the world's memory chips. Now, memory chips manufactured mainly in Japan going to everything from your flat screen TV, to your cameras, DVD players and tablet computers, and NAND flash memory, that may sound familiar, especially of Toshiba is used in your smart phones and tablet specifically the iPad to store data like your photos and songs.

And NAND prices are up already over 12 percent. Now, the plant shutdowns are due both to the damage from the earthquake and tsunami as well as the rolling blackouts that have instated to conserve energy across the area. These blackouts can negatively influence product quality. So, it's going to be awhile before the local industry gets back on to full power.

ROMANS: When we're talking about the world third largest economy with a huge export base, clearly -- I mean, even look just at port, you know, many of the ports are right along the side of the country where they've been seeing these aftershocks and such so it will be some time --

ULRICH: Yes. We're being assured by Samsung today that, actually, they're saying that they're going to find other ways to make sure that the supplies stay standard, but we're going to see in the long-term if this is going to change the prices of our electronics.

CHETRY: Well, they have a long road to recovery, clearly, before they can get back up online.

ULRICH: Definitely.

ROMANS: And next on AMERICAN MORNING, Japan struggling to contain a nuclear nightmare. What are U.S. officials saying about plans for America's nuclear power future? Jim Acosta is following that for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Crossing the half hour right now, time to take a look at our other top stories this morning, and there's been another explosion in one of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. When we say another, it's the same one we've been talking about all morning, but there still are growing concerns. A fire at another reactor that they're working to put out.

And so, this basically means that of the four reactors, all of them have, in some way, been compromised. Dangerous levels of radio activity are being discharged into the atmosphere. Japanese officials telling anyone within 12 miles of the plant, they were evacuated. Within 20 miles of the plant, to stay inside and keep their windows closed.

ROMANS: As the concern deepens search and rescue operations continue following that massive earthquake and tsunami and it is typically a race against time to find survivors. The death toll has climbed. It was more than 2,700 and now we are hearing 3,300 is the latest death toll. Rescue workers say most certainly it's going to climb from there.

CHETRY: Unfortunately. And meantime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is meeting with Japan's foreign minister at a G8 meeting in Paris today. She offered condolences and expressed solidarity with the Japanese people. Japan's foreign minister went on to thank the U.S. government for their support.

ROMANS: And German Chancellor Angela Merkel says seven of her countries nuclear reactors built before 1980 will be shut down for three months for a safety review. She's also announcing a suspension of plans to extend the life of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors.

With nuclear fears spreading across Japan, how is Washington responding to the potential for disaster? CNN's Jim Acosta is following that for us. He's live in Washington. And in Germany they are talking about retiring some of the older facilities or at least reviewing some of the older facilities, and we have already heard those calls here in the U.S. as well, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Here in Washington you heard some of the Democratic worries about nuclear energy. But the White House and top Republicans agree on one thing these days. They still want to give the green light to more nuclear power plants, despite the disaster in Japan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: The U.S. already has nuclear power in earthquake zones. On the California coast, the 26-year-old Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor is expected to get a new license to keep operating even though experts three years ago found a previously unknown earthquake fault line less than a half a mile away offshore.

Nearby residents grilled nuclear regulators on the plant's safety on a public hearing in January. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you be sure that there is not another earthquake fault to be found out there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There could be.

ACOSTA: Despite the potential for a meltdown in Japan, the Obama administration is showing no signs of abandoning nuclear power. Right now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing applications for roughly 20 new plants across the country, most at existing reactor sites. And the White House is pushing for more than that.

DANIEL B. PONEMAN, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ENERGY: We are going to continue to seek to diversify our energy supplies and continue to make sure that each and every one of those sources is as safe as is humanly possible.

ACOSTA: Many Republicans in Congress would go further, backing this roadmap for America's manager future which calls for 200 nuclear power plants by 2040.

ACOSTA (on camera): Are you comfortable with that number, 200?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, (R) CALIFORNIA: If we want to compete long term with China this is where China is headed and where France already is in terms of the base-load of their electricity coming from nuclear power.

ACOSTA: After the BP oil spill and recent coal mine disasters President Obama has pushed nuclear power as a green alternative.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all.

ACOSTA: But pressed on whether U.S. plants could withstand the kind of quake that struck Japan, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found it's hard to give a straight answer.

GREG JACZKO, NRC CHAIRMAN: We have a strong safety program in place to deal with seismic events that are likely to happen at any nuclear facility in this country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: No matter what the U.S. decides, fast-growing countries like China and India are sticking to their nuclear ambitions. Their economies are simply too starved for energy to consider any other alternative.

ROMANS: Jim, thanks.

ACOSTA: You bet.

CHETRY: The devastation in Japan will go down as one of the worst natural disasters on record. But is the scariest earthquake ever poised to hit the U.S.? Our next guest says we better be ready if history is any guide. Simon Winchester, contributor of "Newsweek," will join us in a moment.

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CHETRY: It's 37 minutes past the hour right now. It could be really the biggest earthquake yet waiting to strike.

ROMANS: Could it be? I wonder. In the last 12 months, Chile, New Zealand, and now Japan have all suffered massive earthquakes. That means three of the four corners of the Pacific "ring of fire" have been hit, leaving just one corner, California, untouched for now.

CHETRY: Our next guest is journalist and geologist Simon Winchester. Thank you for joining us. I know it's certainly hard to predict when you find out more information after the fact than beforehand. If you're looking for history as a guide, we're due or that particular fault line is due?

SIMON WINCHESTER, AUTHOR, "A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD": You would think so. You have a fault that ruptured in 1906 and enormous strains under San Francisco as we speak. And even more dangers, rather ominous, the undersea fault known as the Cascadia fault 50 miles off the coast which hasn't ruptured for 250 years. So statistically, they are ready to pop, as it were. I don't mean to be light-hearted about this but from a geological view they are poised from a dangerous position.

And earthquakes tend to happen, there is some argument about this, but they seem to happen in clusters. For instance, in 1906, there was an earthquake a few weeks before the San Francisco devastation in Chile and Ecuador. Now we've had Christchurch, New Zealand, last year, Chile, a big, bad earthquake, last week, Japan. It looks that either the Cascadia or the San Andreas is more ready to rupture than, let's say, 50 years ago.

ROMANS: You mentioned 1906. I guess can we know that it was more than just coincide that there were other seismic activity before 1906 or is it sort of a scientific foreshadowing?

WINCHESTER: That is the big argument among geologists. They don't know.

ROMANS: You are seeing now the graph there. You can see the ring of fire around the world where you had those precursors to what was a terrible earthquake in San Francisco.

WINCHESTER: You remember a few years ago, you had the earthquake in western China, the year before that earthquake in Kashmir. They tend to come in discrete tectonic areas of the world in clusters, and this seems to be happening here.

CHETRY: Is it proper to say the subduction zone underneath in the ocean --

WINCHESTER: The Cascadia is the one little known about.

CHETRY: How much damage could it do to San Francisco or the coast?

WINCHESTER: The coast, a great deal. In a long sway all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

CHETRY: Even after this retrofitting work and each --

WINCHESTER: Well, it's been 22 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake. Still the Bay Bridge isn't fully retrofitted. It's ludicrous politicians haven't gotten their act together to do this.

But leaving aside the damage that would cause by a rupture of the cascade, no historic -- last time is 250 years ago when this country was more or less unpopulated. That would cause, without a doubt, tsunamis. They would be moving down the coast, Seattle, the nuclear base atomic submarine base in Washington, Portland, and then, of course, northern California and San Francisco.

So people need to be aware. I don't want to be a purveyor of doom. I'm simply saying people need to know this thing is in the offing and that it's not merely as if merely is the word to use, destruction of buildings in San Francisco. That's one fault. But the Cascadia would cause, without a doubt, a very big tsunami. The last time it caused a tsunami which went all the way to Japan.

ROMANS: We have been waiting for that big one a long time and waiting for the big one to hit California. People who live in California either joke or fear about it, fear depending on where you stand.

When you look at Japan, Japan has, you know -- it's the same size. A little bit less than the size of California with four times as many people. So when you think about the number of people packed in Japan and how that destruction has been so widespread, what would it look like in California if we had the next big one?

WINCHESTER: It depends whether it's an earthquake or a tsunami. Nothing nice can be said about it. When there is a tsunami, all you can do is run away from it or drive away from it and drive upwards if you can into hills because, obviously, a tsunami is a certain height. And the one that is usually the figure that is bandied around for the Cascadia tsunami would be 100 feet.

CHETRY: A hundred feet? You were talking 13 or 30 in Sendai?

WINCHESTER: It was ten meters in Sendai, 30 feet. Krakatoa came around the Indian Ocean and Atlantic and detected in the English Channel. These waves propagate enormous distances. The resulting tsunami depending on size of the earthquake it was, could be as big as a hundred feet. If that were to happen, well, you attempt to run up a hill which is 101 feet high and then you'll survive. The problem in Japan was that in that part of Japan, it was a flat coastal plane.

You could run away but not up and people died in large numbers and it wouldn't therefore be quite as bad because the topography of Washington, Oregon and Vancouver there are hills. So people would be given an adequate warning. Not a long warning but, you know, the sophisticated senses are ever since the event in March of five years ago they are getting more sophisticated.

We get some minutes warning. People should be advised to go uphill and then people would survive. But nonetheless there would be a lot of devastation.

CHETRY: Don't live your life in fear. You can't control the events of mother nature, but have in the back of your mind what you would do in those cases and on the flip side as you said in terms of getting San Francisco or other areas along that fault line ready, I mean, in Japan they withstand very large earthquakes and their buildings withstand large earthquakes nearly constantly.

WINCHESTER: My wife is Japanese so I have some knowledge about their order and discipline and duty and realizing that the state often knows best and puts plans into organization.

Here, I don't want to get into politics, obviously, but budgets are being cut and warning systems, geological departments. You know, it's sort of invisible thing because warning systems to do with something that may or may not happen. We should not cut budgets for these kinds of things, and that seems to be what's happening these days.

CHETRY: Hopefully, people will listen. You had a very, very interesting article in "Newsweek," and again as you said, you did write "Krakatoa," an interesting book as well. Simon Winchester, thank you for your time.

WINCHESTER: Thank you very much indeed.

CHETRY: We're going to take a quick break and be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Forty-seven minutes past the hour. Time for your travel update and weather update, Jennifer Delgado, our meteorologist from CNN Weather Center joins us. Hey, Jennifer.

DELGADO: Hi guys. Well, let's start looking at the radar. We are still tracking some wet weather out there. You can see down towards the southeast, coming down pretty heavy. Heaviest rainfall moving out of Atlanta. It's going to be spreading over to areas including North Carolina as we go throughout the late morning and afternoon.

And then up towards the north. Of course, we're dealing with some of that heavy rainfall through the Ohio Valley. I also want to point out to you looking at a little bit of freezing rain you can see just to the north of Ft. Wayne. And then for Chicago, you'll see a few scattered showers around but the bulk of the rainfall will be down towards the south and also again a bit of that wintry mix through areas including parts of Toledo.

Also I want to talk to you that we still are dealing with some flooding through parts of the Midwest as well as down towards the south. You can see it in green where we're dealing with the flooding. Down towards areas including Louisiana as well as Mississippi. Minor flooding but we are dealing with some moderate flooding right along the Ohio River through parts of Ohio.

Despite what you're seeing on the radar right now we don't have any delays out there to report. Kiran, as well as Christine, we'll send it back over to you.

ROMANS: All right, Jennifer Delgado. Thank you Jennifer.

DELGADO: You're welcome.

ROMANS: And next on AMERICAN MORNING, the rescue and recovery effort in Japan.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien is seeing firsthand just how monumental this task -- task is. She's going to join us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Fifty-two minutes past the hour. We want to show you a picture that sort of tells just one bright moment. An amazing survival story in Japan amidst a lot of devastation.

A baby girl miraculously pulled from the rubble and reunited with her family yesterday. She was swept from her parent's arms after the tsunami hit their home.

Soldiers were able to hear cries. They dug back thick, oozing mud and they found the baby there ok. Rescuers say she was cold, wet, and crying understandably but is believed to have suffered no other injuries.

ROMANS: A miracle.

And students young and old in this country are reaching across continents to help victims in Japan. In Georgia, a six-year-old kindergartner girl sold her art raising $300 for the cause. Her mom says she just wanted to help.

And in Boston High School students were writing inspirational messages in Japanese. Their teachers say it as a part of the lesson to show Japan the world is with them.

And days after the quake and the tsunami pictures of the devastation still quite frankly hard to comprehend.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien got a firsthand look at one of the areas hardest hit in a town in Kesennuma. Soledad is in Akita, Japan this morning. And -- and we are told actually that we're going to try to get to her in a few minutes --

(CROSS TALK)

CHETRY: Yes.

ROMANS: -- because that signal is not working for us. CHETRY: Well, we'll check back in with her. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right. Our Soledad O'Brien is in Akita, Japan with a really compelling look of the rescue, a rescue there and -- and sort of what's happening on the ground.

Soledad, hi there how are you?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: We're doing just fine. You know, it's a little bit rainy here and every time you get this kind of weather your heart just goes out for the people who are actually outdoors or in their cars, we've seen some of that or people who are in this evacuation centers where is there no heat and no light, no power because the situation is -- is pretty miserable for them.

It's very cold. They are hungry and not a lot of access to fuel or -- or gasoline. We -- we spent our -- our day in a community called Kesennuma which was devastated. A big debris field in the wake of a tsunami that came in about 15 minutes after the earthquake and the damage was really stunning.

You know, I've been through a couple of tsunamis now and I'm always amazed when I see just the devastation. In this particularly case it warding (ph) to a city of 70,000 people to see what that looked like, gutting some of the buildings, some of the better built ones were able to withstand the force of the tsunami. Really it's quite amazing to see.

And then we also did a little tour, I'll -- I'll play a little bit of what we got to see of the boat in the middle of the sidewalk. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN (on camera): You can see those overturned cars down there and just absolute debris. This is what it looks like when a tsunami slams into a much bigger city. The city has a population -- it's called Kesennuma and had a population of about 70,000 we're told. And so the damage, 90 percent tsunami and 10 percent earthquake damage.

So these buildings collapsed although some of them were able to hold up well. But look at this. This is the kind of really, almost equivalent to some of the stuff we saw in Haiti where just the structure just folds in on itself.

That's because the earthquake happened. And then residents here tell us about 15 minutes later from the water came a massive wave that just roared through this town that goes straight back up that way, collapsed everything here. And the force of the water, as you can see, powerful enough to bring this ship in on the sidewalk. So when people are trying to figure out just how strong and how powerful a tsunami can be, this is a pretty good example of what the people here were dealing with. And there's no surprise that a number of people in this town lost their lives that the search and rescue are still looking for more people.

And, today, they are trying to figure out what to do next. Many people asked us, what do you know? What are you hearing? We're not getting any information.

Kesennuma about two hours north of Sendai, some of the people here saying they feel very cut off from understanding what the next step is going to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: We got to take part in a pretty nice reunion today. A young man named Paul Fales who was celebrating his birthday on Thursday and then on Friday he was in the earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, was on a little island. He's a teacher. And his parents have been frantically looking for him. He's from Michigan.

And they were booked to be on Anderson's show last night. And at the same time, we found him coming off a ferry and while we were interviewing him we realized that this was the same kid and we were able to put him in front of the camera and talk to his parents live on television which was a giant relief. And you can imagine for them and for Paul as well who has had a few grueling and harrowing days. A really good experience for him as well.

So he's going to try to get things together and make his way back home as well. Back to you.

CHETRY: Well, it's just little miracles amidst all of that devastation that really just to help carry people through. Soledad, thanks so much.

ROMANS: And people will continue to keep finding each other. That's what's so interesting.

CHETRY: Yes.

ROMANS: You see the white boards where they are writing down this is where I am and this is who I'm looking for. I'm here. This is the family I'm looking for. You can just see in all of these shelters so many different ways that people are trying to connect. And it's the reunions that are so wonderful but then it's just the looks on people's faces when you know they are still searching. And I think over the next days and weeks, because of the chaos in the country, over the next days and weeks, we will continue to see many, many reunions.

CHETRY: Hopefully --

ROMANS: Right.

CHETRY: And stories like that little baby; amazing that she was found alive and well.

That's going to do it for us. So glad you joined us. We'll be back here bright and early tomorrow morning.

ROMANS: "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello starts right now.