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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Wave of Destruction
Aired December 28, 2004 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Anderson Cooper.
The death toll rises, the losses staggering, and thousands search, hoping for their loved ones will be found alive.
360 starts now.
A loss beyond words. The search for thousands of missing continues while the dead are buried. And doctors rush to contain the spread of disease.
Tonight, a 360 special, The Wave of Destruction, the wave of grief.
Contaminated water, decaying bodies, and not enough help to be found. We'll bring you the latest from the hardest-hit areas, with live reports from Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The littlest victims. Rows of tiny bodies waiting to be identified. One-third of those killed by the waves turn out to be children. Too little to run, too little to understand.
An American family searches for their missing son. Tonight, meet the father who's flying halfway around the world to bring back his boy.
And amidst the horror, there is hope, stories of survival. Tonight, a man who scuba dived through the tsunami, and the supermodel who clung to a tree for eight hours.
ANNOUNCER: This is a special two-hour edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, Wave of Destruction.
COOPER: Good evening again.
We're bringing you an expanded two-hour version of 360 tonight because what started as an undersea earthquake this weekend is now being called one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, in terms of how widespread its effects have been.
Last night at this time, we talked about more than 22,000 people dead. This morning -- the morning -- the number this morning was 33,000. And now, some sources say, it may be 60,000.
The truth is, we don't yet know how many are dead. New bodies are still being found, new stories still coming in, and new images, like this one, still coming in all day long.
We've seen people struggling in water, drowning, beachgoers unsure what was happening, some not running soon enough. As the sun rises Wednesday morning now in Thailand, the beaches there and many other places are still strewn with rubble and debris and, worst of all, bodies, so many bodies. Children, it turns out, make up a very large percentage of the dead, children and the elderly, those too weak or too little to run, those unable to hold on to something solid as the water engulfed them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): In the streets of Phuket, the living search for the faces of their friends and family. Pictures of the dead and missing are posted outside the town hall.
The Johnstons flew in from Sweden to find their missing daughter.
BIRGET JOHNSTON, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL: Yes, but it's better to be here than sitting home and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) see on the television. So we asked to be here and to see what we can do, and if we can find her or figure out what happened to her.
COOPER: When the waves began to hit, it took precious seconds for many to figure out just what was happening.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. This is a tidal wave.
COOPER: Stunned, many simply watched the water as it swamped hotels and beach towns.
This was the scene at one resort in Thailand. This is from a resort in Sri Lanka.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, (expletive deleted), God.
COOPER: The power of the waves left everyone in their path defenseless. Some were caught when they approached the beach to see what was going on.
There are thousands still missing, and now the race is on to find and bury the bodies of the dead before a potentially even deadlier wave of disease hits.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a real concern about disposing of these bodies, but there's also a big concern about the bodies that have not been recovered that are buried in the rubble. And a lot of measures had to be taken to purify the water supply and reduce the contamination that has occurred because of all the dead bodies, and all the debris and so on that had washed into these water sources.
COOPER: Mass graves have already been filled. Many more are still to be dug. Killed by the sea, they'll be buried in the earth without name, without ceremony. There's simply not enough time.
(END VIDEOTAPE) Later this evening on 360, we're going to talk with one American, a doctor, who's going to a place that many others are trying desperately to leave. Ed Aleo Sr., is going to Thailand to search for his son, Ed Aleo Jr. We'll have his story later on 360.
There are so many human stories to tell you about tonight, stories of loss and hope, of courage and compassion. We have reporters standing by in four particularly hard-hit places in South Asia, and we'll be turning to them over the next two hours.
Mike Chinoy is in Indonesia tonight near the epicenter of the undersea quake that started it all. Matthew Chance is on the Thai vacation island of Phuket, which a mecca for tourists from all over the world. Hugh Riminton is in the capital of the island nation of Sri Lanka, which sustained perhaps half of all the waves' fatalities. And Malika Kapur (ph) in Port Blair on the little-known Andaman Islands.
We begin tonight with Mike Chinoy. And we want to warn you, some of the pictures you are about to see are terrible.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've heard the astronomical numbers, but nothing can prepare you for a scene like this, the remains of men, women, and children, about 1,000, the workers say, piled high for burial in a mass grave.
The stench is overpowering, contaminating the area, felling bystanders. The grief is equally powerful.
"I lost everyone and everything," says 30-year-old Yusniati (ph). "My four children and my husband are gone, gone. I was holding my 8- month-old in the waters, but the waves pulled us apart."
But Yusniati knows where her 3-year-old is. She found his body in the street and brought him here.
(on camera): This scene is so horrible, there are no words to describe it. And what makes it even more awful is the fact that the bodies behind me are just a small fraction of the overall number who died here.
(voice-over): "There are still a lot of bodies out there," says Alam Sol (ph), "because so much of Banda Aceh was flooded by the waves."
There's no dignity in this kind of death. It feels more like a garbage dump than a grave. But in their desperate struggle to bury decomposing bodies before the danger of epidemics grows even greater, the authorities have little choice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY: And it's an overwhelming task, as you drive around this city. There are still bodies littering the streets, bodies littering the courtyards, the authorities simply unable to cope with the scale of the disaster.
And that doesn't even begin to account for the hundreds of thousands of people in the outlying rural areas, about whom we have had simply no information. We don't know the scale of the casualties, how many people are dead, how many are alive, what kind of shape they're in, Anderson.
COOPER: So Mike, in those outlying areas, you're saying there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who are -- at this point, no one knows what their status is, and no one has been able to get any relief to them?
CHINOY: That's right. The whole western coast of Aceh province in the northernmost tip of Indonesia is the land mass that is closest to the epicenter of the quake, and all communications have been cut off. The roads have been destroyed. The relief effort organized by the Indonesian government has been slow to get up and running. Even here in Banda Aceh, very, very little help has been made available so far.
And in these outlying areas, large rural communities, people living along the seashore, who would have been very, very vulnerable to the huge tsunami, we just have no information at all about what's happened to them.
COOPER: One can only imagine at this point. Mike Chinoy, thank you very much for that report. A difficult place to report from tonight.
Why some people lived and others died often boiled down really to location and luck, nothing more. Some Californians vacationing in Thailand say they are alive tonight in part because they skipped a yoga class.
James Firmage and his wife and two young daughters went to Phi Phi Island for Christmas. They ended up having to run for their lives. James is now with his family at a hotel in Bangkok. He joins me now by phone.
James, appreciate you joining us tonight. How are your family doing?
Hey, James, it's Anderson in New York. Can you hear me?
Clearly, we're having trouble with James. We'll try to get back. He's in a hotel in Bangkok. He has a remarkable story. We'll get back to him a little bit later, as soon as we get the connection going.
We take you further west now to Sri Lanka. It's an island nation, of course, naked on all sides to the force of that unstoppable sea. And that's where the death toll, for now, at least, seems to be the highest.
CNN's Hugh Riminton reports from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid survival stories, a tale of no survivors. On Sri Lanka's west coast, south of the capital, Colombo, all 1,000 people on this eight-carriage train are now recorded as dead or missing.
It was the same series of waves that hit English tourist Peter Etheridge (ph) on a nearby beach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't believe the power. It was just unbelievable.
RIMINTON: Taken to Colombo's main hospital, he cuts a lonely figure. The wave swept away Pat, his wife of 32 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then it came in again. I could hear my wife scream. I knew where she was, and I was hiding behind a roof, and I went round to get her, and just all hell broke loose. And that was the last time I saw her.
RIMINTON (on camera): Despite the stories in these wards, doctors are being stripped out of the capital, Colombo, to fill the overwhelming needs out in the district hospitals that are bearing the brunt of this medical emergency.
(voice-over): One hundred and twenty-five doctors, many of them volunteers, have already been airlifted to frontline clinics. The burnout rate, just 48 hours before most need to be relieved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The conditions that, you know, you don't have electricity, you don't have water service. The buildings are shattered, hospitals are shattered.
RIMINTON: The immediate needs, antibiotics and painkillers. The medical challenges, wound infection, respiratory problems among those who inhaled water.
And bodies, so many they threaten to contaminate everything.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RIMINTON: The Sri Lankan president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has traveled around the worst-affected areas by helicopter to make her own assessment. She has since declared the medical need to be now the number-one priority. There are many priorities clamoring for that grim title. She has delivered a plan for doctors to be brought out of retirement in Sri Lanka to try to make up the numbers to meet this appalling need, Anderson.
COOPER: Hugh, have we heard from areas not under the control of the government? Because, as we know, there's a civil war that's been going on in Sri Lanka now for quite a while, the Tamil Tigers control, I think, it's the northern part of the country. Are we getting word from that region?
RIMINTON: We are getting word, but as is the case right across Sri Lanka, very often it's patchy. Some of the doctors that have gone into the areas that are government controlled have simply not communicated back to their base since they went in there, up to 48 hours ago. So even the government-controlled areas, there is very patchy communications about what they're confronting and what they need.
We do know from the Tamil-held areas, as you say, in the north and east, that they have issued a request, an urgent request for more doctors and for more medical support.
So one can assume from that, that broadly speaking, the conditions in their areas are very much the same as in the south and the east. There is a desperate need for doctors, a desperate need for medical care of almost every stripe -- antibiotics, painkillers, and so many other things as well -- so that they can get this work done.
COOPER: And that can be said of a number of places hard hit by this, these waves. Hugh Riminton in Colombo, thanks very much.
Just want to point to you have been listening at home, we've now heard from two reporters, one in Indonesia, one in Sri Lanka, both saying that there are large swaths of the country, or areas that were hard hit that we simply do not have information from.
This means the death toll that we've been giving you now, and we've been updating every hour, simply is not accurate. We simply do not know how many people -- we do not understand the scope of this at this point. The numbers could be astronomical.
One of the world's largest-ever relief efforts is under way right now. A U.N. official said that rich nations are stingy in their giving. He said that yesterday. Here's a quick news note about how much has been given so far. The U.S. is offering the most, $35 million, followed by Japan with $30 million. Saudi Arabia has pledged $10 million. Australia is planning to give $7.6 million, and Germany, $2.7 million. And that, of course, just the initial estimates.
Our special addition of 360 continues. The amazing story of a couple who were scuba diving when the tsunami hit. They actually had to grab onto coral under water to stay alive.
Plus, from the cover of "Sports Illustrated" to clinging for her life in a tree, a swimsuit model and her boyfriend caught in the tsunami. She lived. He is missing.
Also tonight, children lost. The tiny faces of tragedy. Thousands washed away, and the grieving parents they've left behind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So many of the pictures we're seeing, shot just on home video, people on vacation. And they keep coming in hour after hour. We're showing them to you as we get them.
Of course,, as we said before, you know, why some people lived and others died often really boiled down to location and probably luck. Some Californians vacationing in Thailand said they are alive tonight because they skipped a yoga class. James Firmage, his wife and two young daughters went to Phi Phi Island for Christmas. It's off the coast of Thailand. They ended up literally running for their lives.
James now with his family at a hotel in Bangkok. He joins me now by phone.
James, how is your wife, how are your two daughters doing?
JAMES FIRMAGE, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, we're, you know, we're shaken and certainly a little scared, a little battered, but overall physically, we're -- I wouldn't call us a picture of health, but certainly feeling very lucky and very fortunate.
We had a good night's sleep, although my youngest climbed into bed with me because she thought another tsunami was going to be coming. And in comparison to so many others who were running side by side that we never saw again, and other people that we saw being washed away, you know, literally, we were running for our lives. I won't ever use that term spartanly again.
COOPER: When you say literally running for your lives, I mean, tell us where you were when the first wave hit.
FIRMAGE: Right. Well, we had checked out of our hotel, so we were walking down along the beach looking for -- actually, it was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a massage on the beach. And my daughter, my youngest daughter, sat down to write in her journal that we've been encouraging her to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We noticed that there was sort of this wonderment and awe with some of the local Thais.
And by the way, if I don't get a chance to thank the generosity of the Thai people on the island, they lost so much and were so generous.
We were sitting on the beach and looking at one of the locals and trying to get her attention, and noticed that the tide, where it should have been high, was low, and that the longtail boats were all on top of the sand.
Then we noticed sort of a sudden and dramatic wave, the water run -- going out, then coming back in in a circular motion. And then another very large wave, maybe three to -- three feet, started coming in bigger. And at that point, the locals grabbed their children and started running.
And I thought -- I still wasn't sure. I made a remark that it looks like a tsunami, sort of half-casually. And then we started running. Then we ran. And I thought, Well, OK, it's going to stop, it's going to hit our ankles. And my youngest daughter dropped her journal, and I went to pick it up.
And when I picked it up, I heard this sound that could only be described as perhaps a jet engine bearing down on us, and trees starting to break. And then what looked like a wave that was 10 to 15 feet -- not in the traditional sense of a wave, but water, massive water rushing at us, closing the gap, you know, maybe 100 yards. And we ran another 100 yards, just probably in 10 seconds flat. I don't think we've ever run that fast.
And my daughter dropped her journal, and she went to pick it up. I literally froze, grabbed her, pushed her along, grabbed the journal, ran through a series of houses of a small village that was -- and I could hear snapping and cracking and popping, horrific sounds, louder than I've ever heard before.
And we made it, through a stroke of luck and pathway to a small restaurant that was in the shape of, ironically, a boat, that we ran up some steps. We kept running until we thought we were safe. And then sort of just -- everything just shut down. And then it happened again 10 minutes later, and then another time, a half-hour after that.
And sometime between that point, myself, my wife, and my oldest daughter ran up the side of a mountain. And, you know, only -- we found them an hour and a half later, thankfully, on top of a mountain peak, the highest part of the mountain, with 200 other people, Thais, many foreigners, all scared out of their wits, not knowing what was going to happen, and rumors were flying.
But from there, we spent a night in the jungle, thinking that was the safest place we were going to be.
COOPER: James, what do you tell your kids? I mean, do they ask why this happened?
FIRMAGE: Thankfully, we haven't had to ask, we haven't had to answer that question. We've just been talking about it, and we talk, and we cry. And we talk, and we cry some more. And then they cry. And for them, it's a different perspective.
My youngest was upset that she lost her little stuffed animal. My oldest was shaking uncontrollably and couldn't tell me why. And we've been describing to them all morning and last night, and the people here have been so gracious. Nobody has been afraid to talk to us. Everybody's been very helpful and overwhelmingly supportive.
And even though the grandson of the king in Thailand passed away, which is akin to George Bush losing his daughters, you know, that's how much they revere and love the king here.
They were gracious enough to ask how we were doing. And one gentleman came down, cooked some rice, brought it up to us from the hill, without thinking about his family. And others would make sure we were OK.
You know, so because of the support from everybody around us and because we had -- we were sleeping with a group of incredibly great people that we've nicknamed, who were always looking out for our children, we didn't have to -- we haven't had to have that conversation. I'm sure we will.
But thankfully, now, they just -- they talk about it, but in a sense that this is a natural thing, and there was nothing anybody could have done to prevent it, and here we are.
COOPER: It's an extraordinary thing, and a difficult thing for us to sort of comprehend. Telling your story...
FIRMAGE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
COOPER: ... just hearing your voice brings it home a little bit. But I don't think anyone who was there can comprehend it, can we?
FIRMAGE: You know, I don't think -- I mean, I can only describe this, the combination of a jet engine getting closer to you, and a piece of wood snapping right behind your ears, I mean, can get a visual of what that would sound like.
But increasing in size, and then seeing water, which we normally treat as sort of a friendly, life-giving thing, to be this monster, that's seeming like it's coming for you. And, of course, it isn't, it's a natural disaster.
But I can't -- I -- that's probably -- maybe I can describe it in words better some other day, but I just have this mental picture. And the aftermath. I mean, there was a whole village that was wiped out. It was there. Ten seconds later, it was gone, floating by.
COOPER: James...
FIRMAGE: People were in the water. We saw one man broken, had his back broken, and people hanging off of roofs. You know, I went down later to take stock, to get some supplies, because I knew we would be there for a day. And there were a number of dead bodies. There were some brave dive teams, people that went -- spent all night, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Samaritans, helping out (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
COOPER: Did your kids, did your kids see that? Did your kids see the bodies?
FIRMAGE: My kids, thankfully, didn't see that part. They did see it when we left the pier, when some Thai people came through with what looked like a baby, who had been wrapped. And we closed -- we covered their eyes, for the most part, but we walked by several bodies that had been wrapped, thankfully so.
COOPER: James, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I don't know what to say, really. I appreciate you being on the program, and I'm very thankful that you and your kids are safe, and you had the presence of mind to run.
FIRMAGE: Well, you know, in a small way, by talking about it, it actually helps all of us. And I just want to say, you know, (SPEAKING THAI) to all of the Thai people and the Ferengs for their generosity and the way people pulled together. And we saw the best of human nature and we saw the worst of it.
COOPER: (SPEAKING THAI) indeed. Thanks...
FIRMAGE: I don't need to mention the worst. I can just celebrate the fact that, you know, there was people, there was -- lost. We were lucky enough to have our passports, and our money and our tickets with us, because we checked out. And, you know, through the grace of whatever higher being you believe in, I didn't take a stupid yoga class, and I went and joined my family, and it just so happens we were in a spot that we could run to higher ground.
COOPER: Amazing. James, I appreciate you joining us. I know you got to go. James Firmage. His wife and daughters are safe tonight in Bangkok. James, thanks for being with us.
In Thailand, the beaches around Phuket are so desirable, there's an international airport there just to fly in vacationers from all over the world. But being that close to the ocean proved deadly for many of those same tourists. Now the search is on for their bodies.
CNN's Matthew Chance is in Phuket tonight. Matthew?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, this is a tragedy of staggering proportions. In Thailand alone, by no means the worst- affected country in the region, there are already 1,500 people confirmed dead, and according to the Thai authorities, another 1,500 missing.
Here in Phuket, the holiday island, a favored destination, as you mentioned, by tourists from around the region and around the world, there are scenes of desperation as people, survivors of this tsunami, have gathered near the town hall, pinning photographs of their loved ones, people they haven't found yet, people they've been separated from, to notice boards in that area.
Diplomatic missions, a set of emergency desks there, not just to give people passports so they can get out of Phuket and return to their homes, but also to register the names of those people who are missing as well.
As I say, at least 1,500 are still unaccounted for, and that figure could rise further, Anderson, because there are still some outlying areas, some of the more remote beaches in the archipelago of islands right behind me here, in this area off the coast of Thailand, that have really not been fully, you know, visited yet by the rescue teams.
There are still reports coming in of absolutely atrocious scenes of bodies strewn along beaches, bodies still hanging in bushes, after the terrible events of a few days ago, when this devastating tsunami struck.
It was really interesting hearing what James, your previous guest, was saying, because the Thai authorities here are really, really struggling to cope with this tragedy, not just with the Thais they, of course, have to rescue, but also with dealing with the many, many foreigners. The language barrier is, of course, making identification of the bodies and getting the survivors together again that much more difficult.
And quite frankly, the Thai authorities, even though they're better equipped than many of the countries in the region, they still don't have adequate resources to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude, Anderson.
COOPER: And it keeps going on and on. Matthew Chance, thanks for that from Thailand tonight.
Our special edition of 360 continues. Reuters is reporting the death toll is approaching 60,000. And for those that survived, another deadly disaster looming over them, disease from the aftermath and the carnage. The race against time to bring in and save thousands more. We're going to talk about that race when we come back.
Also tonight, another story of survival. A "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit model caught in the waves' raging path. Find out how she managed to escape after clinging to a tree for hours.
And a little later, surviving under water. A couple who were scuba diving when disaster struck.
We're covering all the angles on this special edition. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So many stories to tell you about. In a small fishing village in India, an old woman was heard to cry out, "Why did he do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?"
It's a cry that could have come from Thailand or Indonesia, Malaysia or Sri Lanka. There is suffering in so many places tonight.
Joining me from Colombo, Sri Lanka is Alastair Gordon-Gibson of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, one of dozens of agencies doing good work, trying to help the victims.
Alastair, thanks for joining us again tonight. You know, last night when we spoke, the numbers were some 12,000 dead in Sri Lanka. We've just gotten word Reuters is reporting 21,000 confirmed dead.
You say and other health officials are telling us as many people could die from disease now as from the actual tsunamis. Do you think that's true, and how is that possible?
ALASTAIR GORDON-GIBSON, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT SOCIETIES: Yes. As you say, the numbers are changing on a daily basis. Many areas are still yet to be properly surveyed and assessed by the teams. And the risks -- we're all duly concerned now that the longer the search and rescue goes on, and the water levels remain high, the risk of waterborne diseases, dysentery and the worse, could be very, very real. So we're now taking measures that we hope to try to mitigate the effect of that.
COOPER: And what kind of measures can you take? I mean, you know -- you need clean water, sanitation, there's food shortages, disposal of corpses. What's the number-one concern right now, and how are you dealing with it? GORDON-GIBSON: Well, we've got medical teams -- at the present, there's a need for big international support on that side. So we have brought in two medical teams over the last 12 hours with full health clinics and basic health care kits which we can set up in the most affected areas, which could be up and operational within 48 hours.
Supporting these health units will be sterilized, specialized water production units to supply clean drinking water, which is going to be absolutely critical to ensure that any risk of contamination is controlled in some way.
COOPER: And, I mean, we all know what a lot of these areas are like. Sri Lanka has been wrestling with a civil war. The government, limited resources. We've been looking while you're talking, Alastair, pictures of military officials sort of throwing supplies off a flat- bed truck. Are you able to operate in the north of Sri Lanka, the areas controlled by the Tamil separatists?
GORDON-GIBSON: The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has got branches in the north and east, so they're already working with their volunteers up there. And the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, have got offices in five districts in the north and east. So they're supporting the Sri Lankan Red Cross and already bringing in relief supplies.
So the support to the Red Cross from ICRC in the north and east and us from the south and west, we hope, will help mitigate some of these devastating signs that we're seeing everywhere.
COOPER: Alastair, bottom line, for someone sitting at home right now in America, what's the best thing they can do? Is it giving money? Is it sending clothes? What is it?
GORDON-GIBSON: Well, most of the big relief agencies and, of course, the governments have issued now appeals for support. There are surveys ongoing now. The United Nations have got surveys on the ground. The International Red Cross, the ICRC and ourselves, and the Sri Lankan Red Cross.
I think responding in a controlled way to the targeted demands of those appeals would probably be the most effective way to respond. There's always a risk, of course, of too many very well-thought out activities and donations coming in, which could clog up the system, which could be wrongly targeted.
So I think focusing on the assessments, responding to balanced, targeted appeals to the government, to the agencies on the field, I think, is probably the most responsible and productive way of helping.
COOPER: And we're going to give some Web site information to people who do want to help very shortly.
Alastair Gordon-Gibson, I know you've got to go. You've got a million things to do. We appreciate you joining us and taking the time. Thanks, Alastair. Another factor to consider, an economic impact of the tsunamis. Here's a 360 fast fact. The world's largest reinsurer says the disaster will likely cause economic damage of at least -- we're talking at least -- $13.6 billion. And, of course, this is early days.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) says insurers are likely to pick up only a small portion of that tab since the tsunami hit mainly underdeveloped regions. This year alone, before the tsunami struck, natural disasters around the world cost insurance industry $40 billion, the most expensive year ever.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The littlest victims. Rows of tiny bodies waiting to be identified. One-third of those killed by the waves turn out to be children too little to run, too little to understand.
An American family searches for their missing son. Tonight, meet the father who's flying halfway around the world to bring back his boy.
And amidst the horror, there is hope, stories of survival. Tonight, a man who scuba dived through the tsunami and the super model who clung to a tree for eight hours. 360 continues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god, this is a tidal wave. This is scary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Welcome back to this special two-hour edition of 360. We've expanded the program tonight because there is so much new information still coming in, even over the course of this hour.
This disaster has already established itself as one of the most dreadful and difficult stories of our time, with images equally difficult to look at. Now, many of the pictures we've been showing you almost -- they don't make sense at first. You kind of have to see them over and over. You have to look at them closely to sort of figure out what you're actually looking at.
Whole places turned upside down and inside out, things in the water that shouldn't be in the water, things on land that shouldn't be on land. And in far too many places, what at first you take to be piles of clothing scattered here or there, or something floating in the water, it's not piles of clothing at all. They are, of course, bodies.
So many bodies, you begin to wonder how anyone made it out alive. But people did, thankfully. One American couple on vacation in Sri Lanka may have survived the tsunami because they were not at their hotel. This is what it looked like at one hotel in Sri Lanka when the waves first began.
A man clinging to a tree. Hotel guests just not sure what was happening, not sure what to do. At this hotel, guests climbed to higher floors for their lives. As we said, the people you're about to meet didn't have that option.
Warren and Julie Lavender, they weren't at the hotel. The tsunami literally rolled right over them, the first wave did. They were scuba diving. Warren Lavender relived his incredible tale when I spoke to him on the phone earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Warren, you were actually underwater when the first wave hit. What did it feel like?
WARREN LAVENDER, SURVIVED TSUNAMI: As close as I can describe it, it felt like there was an underwater hurricane. It was blowing -- I mean, the current was so strong that everyone was just hanging on to coral or rocks or whatever they could.
COOPER: So you literally grabbed onto coral. How long did you stay down before you surfaced?
LAVENDER: Well, pretty soon after that, and primarily because I was running out of air, we had to come up. But, as we came up, you know, the current that we had felt previously had just kind of disappeared. And like I said, when we got to the surface, we had no idea what had happened.
COOPER: And the boat was still there, the dive boat?
LAVENDER: Yes, it was.
COOPER: So at this point, you decided, obviously, to abort the dive and to get back to shore?
LAVENDER: Yes. And we just -- even then, we started going back to shore. And it seemed like the end of a perfectly normal dive. But as we got back to shore, we noticed that, you know, we were saying, where's the beach? And then, you know, it had just disappeared.
And then we noticed the waves were basically destroying one of the hotels. And then, when we looked at the faces of the dive instructor and the boat pilots, we knew that there was something wrong because they had, you know, just that look on their faces.
COOPER: Then what happened? Did you -- I mean, was your hotel still standing?
LAVENDER: Well, ours -- we had no idea at that time. We had to go to the -- we headed toward the dive center that was in this little estuary. And just as we were about to go up it, we noticed a wave. And what it was -- the tidal wave had gone up the estuary and it was coming back down.
And when we saw that, we started screaming at the driver -- or the boat pilot to get us to shore, which he did, and I'm sure saved our lives. And then everyone just basically hit the shore and ran for it.
COOPER: So you were still in the boat when you saw this wave coming back at you. How big was the wave? How fast was it moving?
LAVENDER: Well, I couldn't judge how fast it was moving because it was behind me. We were just running. But, you know, it was carrying everything that it had destroyed on its way in. It was carrying it on its way out. So there was furniture and buildings and pieces of everything. And, you know, just as fast as we could run, we ran. And just as we thought that was over, then another wave came in from the ocean. And then it was, again, you know, run.
COOPER: Did people sort of come together in this situation? I mean, often in these situations, you know, we see people really reaching out to one another, local people there. Were they very helpful to you?
LAVENDER: Well, they were almost -- it was almost in a bizarre sense, because there was people whose shops we had been at the day before, where they're stopping on the street, kind of amongst the panic, seeing us, and they said all they want to know is if we're OK.
And a friend of ours that was with us, she happened to be on the beach, and a family took her in and fed her and gave her water. And we were evacuated finally, and we spent the night on the floor of a family that lived on higher ground. And we had no idea who they were. But they stayed up all night and -- you know, I mean, some of these people are making $25 a week, and, like, it just -- it was just unbelievable. I mean, and they totally took care of us because we just felt totally helpless. And they, you know, they just took care of everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, the Lavenders fly out of Sri Lanka first thing in the morning. They're going to head to Kuwait, where they're both school teachers. Warren told me they leave with heavy hearts and a feeling of guilt. They can simply go, of course, while the Sri Lankans faces the task of rebuilding their shattered lives.
Next on this special edition of 360, a "Sports Illustrated" model caught in the tsunami. So many different stories to tell you about. She hangs onto a tree for hours. We'll have her story of survival ahead.
Plus, a little boy lost and then found. The reunion with his family, but there is still heartache for them tonight.
And so many of the dead, so many of the injured are children, their parents facing grief that is simply too much to bear.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: This was the scene in Patong beach in Phuket, some of the new video we have been getting in throughout the day. Hard to imagine.
When that wave came down, it not only killed thousands of young children, it turned many others into orphans. Among the pictures of people sobbing over the deaths of family members are images of young ones searching for their parents.
Here, a young boy named Karl (ph) from Sweden. He's holding up a sign for a photographer in Phuket, Thailand. He's missing his parents and two brothers right now.
At a hospital in Phuket, this girl, 10 years old, she's from Germany. Her name is Sophia (ph). She waits for any sign of her parents. You can see the scars from the water and debris clearly visible on her face. These kids are at least able to ask for help.
Eric Philips tonight reports on one child who could not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hannas Bergstrum's (ph) face bears the marks of his ordeal. When he first came to this Thailand hospital, the nurses didn't know who he was or where he came from, so they started calling him "Boo boo."
The Swedish toddler had been found wrapped in blankets and covered in scratches, still at the top of a hill in Phuket after the wave hit. Two American tourists, Rebecca Bedall (ph) and boyfriend Ron Rubin, carried him to the local hospital.
RON RUBIN, FOUND BOY: When we had him, he couldn't even say a word.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just thought...
RUBIN: We thought his whole family was washed out to sea. We had no idea.
PHILIPS: Hannas' photo was posted on the Internet, and within hours, he was identified by family members in Europe and reunited with his grandmother.
RUBIN: It was just a miracle getting him to the hospital from the -- you know, from up in the jungle like we've got a ride. I mean, you know, how did that happen?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a miracle that he got to the hospital.
PHILIPS: The boy's father and grandfather have been found and are in a different hospital. His mother is still missing.
Eric Philips, CNN, Atlanta. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You know, it's hard to make sense of some of these numbers, but right now, we heard a statistic though that just -- it's hard to believe. A third of the people killed, it's believed at this point, by the tsunami were children. Many were buried in mass graves, like this one in India. Relatives, of course, still in shock and mourning, are all mourning along the edge.
Elsewhere, a mother cries over the bodies of her two young daughters, her hands caressing their faces. Another image shows the tremendous grief, relatives of victims wailing out at a mass burial site.
The sad fact is there will be more scenes like this. More victims will be found. And there's no guarantee that the children who did survive are safe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Their grief is nearly too much to bear. Parents, whose precious children were suddenly pulled out to sea or crushed by the oncoming water, their young lives lost in the crash of a wave.
In Thailand and India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, desperate parents search for their children on the streets and in the morgues, hoping, praying their babies are still alive.
The images are haunting. A mother searches through lifeless bodies looking for her child. A father carries the body of his dead child. Parents without children, children without parents. This boy cries out for his mother as she is laid to rest.
According to UNICEF, one-third of the tens of thousands of lives lost in the tsunami are children, the littlest victims, too young to understand the wrath of nature, too small to escape the danger.
CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Kids are the least able to run, the least able to -- they can run, but the least able to withstand the flooding or holding on. So that's one of the reasons children have been particularly affected.
COOPER: UNICEF officials also point out that in the countries hardest hit by this disaster, where between one-third and one-half of the population is under 18 years of age, children could account for up to half the death toll when the final figures are tallied.
And while there's little risk of another deadly wave, the danger is far from over for these families, so many already torn apart by tragedy.
CHRISTOPH GORDER, AMERICARES: The larger task at hand will be keeping the survivors alive, the millions of people who were displaced and vulnerable in these unsanitary conditions.
COOPER: The heat, exposed corpses, lack of food and clean water could lead to epidemics of cholera and other diseases, and that could double the number of child victims. The future swept away in a monumental disaster that may change the face of a continent for generations to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We've already gotten some e-mails from viewers who said they don't want to see those pictures, they don't want to see such images of children. And I know it's hard to look at, and it's something none of us want to see, but this is what's happening to ten of thousands of people right now on the other side of the world, and we thought you should know about it.
Our special edition of 360 continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: When we first saw the video yesterday, we were overwhelmed, of course, by the power of this wave. And there were several waves that hit Phuket. It crashed down the Thai resort and destroyed anything in its path, killed indiscriminately.
You know, one of the realities of a disaster like this, whether it's a hurricane or anything like this, is that it doesn't really discriminate. The young are killed, so are the old, the rich and the poor.
We're trying to bring you in this special two-hour edition of 360 as many stories of survival as we can. So add this one to the list. A supermodel was in Phuket when the tsunami hit. Adaora Udoji has her story of survival.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Petra Nemcova, a 25-year-old supermodel with a hectic schedule, making magazine covers, like "Sports Illustrated" in 2003, sometimes working with her boyfriend of two years, British fashion photographer Simon Atlee. This, a 2005 calendar they shot together.
They've been working so hard, she surprised Atlee with a trip to Thailand's renowned resort haven of Phuket. She told the head of her modeling agency they were relaxing inside when the tsunami horror began.
FAITH KATES, NEXT MODELS PRESIDENT: She heard the kids screaming. She went to see what was going on, because she was so concerned about the kids. And as she went to see what was going on, the wave hit her bungalow, and it washed it away.
UDOJI: Nemcova and Atlee grabbed onto a palm tree as the ocean, debris, and bodies rushed by. In an instant, she told friends Atlee was swept away. She held on for eight hours, despite major injuries.
KATES: She's got a broken pelvis. She's got some shattered bones in her hip. UDOJI: But more than anything, says her long-time friend Jamison Ernest, who helped track her down in a Thai hospital, Nemcova is desperate to find Atlee.
JAMISON ERNEST, FRIEND OF PETRA NEMCOVA: My biggest concern right now is that whatever way anybody can to help identify Simon or find Simon, you know, at her Web site. There's people on it 24 hours a day right now.
UDOJI: Nemcova's sister immediately jumped on a plane from New York to Thailand, enormously relieved. They're all praying Atlee is somewhere recovering, too.
Adaora Udoji, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: When 360 returns, a man on a mission to find his son. You're going to meet a father who leaves tomorrow, hoping to bring his boy back.
We'll also tell the tale of an entire train full of people lost to the sea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360.
COOPER: And welcome back to special edition. PAULA ZAHN NOW won't be seen tonight, as we continue our coverage of the wave of destruction and the wave of grief, so many stories to tell you about, so many stories still developing at this hour.
Let's begin by looking up close at one city. Some of the most disturbing images from this disaster were pictures from Galle, Sri Lanka, people trapped in fast-moving water, some unable to hold on. They were simply swept away. Cars and buses floated like boats, people trying to ride them to stay afloat. You may remember, we showed you these pictures last night. The long red objects near the top of your screen there are railroad passenger cars.
Today, we've learned more about one particular train. You're about to see some very disturbing images of the terrible thing that happened to the people on board.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): This train was called the Queen of the Sea, and today we saw what sea did to it. A thousand people had bought tickets on the train for a Sunday ride along the Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, to Galle.
First almost all of them, this train became a death trap; 15 miles short of Galle, the train stopped because of high water. People from nearby houses climbed aboard to stay dry. Then the tsunami hit. In the streets of Gaulle, the water overwhelmed, buildings and cars and people washed away. Today, back in the jungle, those train cars lay scattered like toys.
The force of the water tore the wheels and axles off some of them. The track is twisted upright like a fence. Of the 1,000 passengers, at least 800 are dead. Trucks hauled away piles of bodies. At least 200 victims were carried away to be buried or cremated, their last rights next to the Queen of the Sea and the sea that killed them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We can only imagine their families not knowing that their loved ones have already been buried in some cases. Sri Lankan officials say the death count on their island is at least 18,000. Reuters reporting earlier in this hour, it's now up to 21,000, but those numbers meaningless at this point. Those numbers are going to continue to grow.
CNN's overall death toll from the disaster, right now, at least 33,000. But, as you heard perhaps in our last hour of coverage, there are a whole parts of certain areas that have not even been accounted for. Mike Chinoy of CNN was in Indonesia. In the area directly hit, the area where the tsunami first went, no one has even been able to get to those areas to find out. And he said there are hundreds and thousands of people living in those areas. It's simply too early at this point to give an accurate assessment of the death toll.
The Associated Press has put it much higher, about 52,000. We'll just keep watching it. Here's a way to visualize that. About that many people, about 52,000 people can fit in Yankee Stadium at one time.
There's at least one man in Galle we have heard about who lost his home and his place of business, but he finds himself not out of work today. He's an undertaker, and right now he is very much in demand.
With more from this beleaguered center, CNN's Satinder Bindra joins us live -- Satinder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This eyewitness video obtained by CNN shows a 20-feet high tidal wave ripping through southern Sri Lankan town of Galle. The savage sea consumes everything in its wake: homes, cars, vans and furniture. Terrified residents try to find cover.
Many don't make it. Within seconds, hundreds in this town, many of them children, are engulfed by the raging waters. Doctors say most of the children died of trauma injuries. Others drowned. Police say about 1,000 Galle residents died when this entire train was tossed around like a toy. Nature didn't even spare miles and miles of steel track. Galle's more able-bodied adults survived by clamoring upon buses. As the waters receded, these survivors had the unbearable task of taking their loved ones home. Others frantically search everywhere for their family members. Unable to find them, their grief explodes. Thousands in this world- famous beach resort and across Sri Lanka are still missing, but hopes of finding any more survivors are fading fast. Rescue workers in Galle are now only pulling out badly decomposed corpses.
(on camera): Over the past two days, more than 800 bodies have been brought to this hospital alone. With 300 of them still unidentified, hospital staff here are now organizing mass burials.
(voice-over): Fearing the spread of illness and disease, authorities organize a massive clean-up. Mangled cars are pulled out from under tons of rubble. Dozens and dozens of such buses will soon end up in the scrap yard.
These holiday season signs seem eerily out of place in this grief-stricken city. No one here wants to participate in New Year's celebrations. Sri Lanka has already declared five days of national mourning and all Galle's residents can think of is thousands of their countrymen, friends and family members who will not be with them in the new year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BINDRA: Anderson, several international teams have now arrived here in Sri Lanka. The Russians are here. The French are here. The Indians are here, and the Israelis are here.
But the priority now seems to try to stop the spread of disease. It's feared, even more people could die of disease know that the tsunami itself if proper precautions aren't taken, and soon.
COOPER: Satinder, there had been a report that Israel -- I'm reading this off of the wire right now -- that Israel had offered aid and also a medical delegation, I think 150-member delegation. There's a story going around that Sri Lanka accepted the aid, but refused Israeli personnel coming to the country. Is that true?
BINDRA: Well, we understand that Israeli personnel are already here.
And what's happening at the moment is here in Sri Lanka to take just as much of the international community is giving. Sri Lanka has said for the last two days, Anderson, it's desperate for everything from food, medicine, water supplies, that sort of thing.
And medical personnel are the greatest need of the hour, because if illness and disease start here, then, in these hot conditions, perhaps it will not be easy to stop disease from spreading and spreading fast. So, the priority now remains to get medical teams and to provide emotional support to tens and thousands of shattered victims.
COOPER: So, just so we're clear and accurate, Satinder, the word that Israeli personnel are on the ground, you got that from the government or that's just -- that's sort of the word out there? BINDRA: We are hearing from Colombo that Israeli teams have arrived.
Where they've been deployed will be a matter of some time. We understand the Israelis could be going to the north and to the east. Now, this information may change as time goes along. But this is the information that I'm getting here in Galle from the capital, Colombo.
COOPER: OK, Satinder Bindra, we appreciate it. And I know it's a difficult thing gathering information right now, especially in Galle, isolated, as it is, due to the events. Satinder, thanks very much.
Here in the United States, of course, there's many people sitting at home, some no doubt watching right now, waiting for word from friends and relatives in the ravaged countries. A few survivors are already home.
In Los Angeles, we found a very happy reunion, indeed, tempered by a very harrowing story. Justin Barth his friend, Jake King, left Los Angeles last Thursday on what was meant to be a vacation in Phuket, Thailand. Here, in their own words, is what happened to them on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUSTIN BARTH, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I was having breakfast, and the wave just came in and took everybody on the beach with it. Life kind of slows down in a split-second. Can't really think during those circumstances. You just have to kind of react and go.
It kind of just looked like a regular high-tide wave, and then it just got more intense and more intense. And then everybody started running off of the beach. And it was chaos. There was cars floating down the street.
JAKE KING, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: The water got so high that we -- the door would only open outward. We were unable to push the door outward. So, in order to get out, he had to grab just bottles and chairs and shattered the window. And that's when the water basically pushed me all the way back. He floated his way out.
The TVs and mattresses inside the rooms were floating, you know, at shoulder high, and the water was coming so quick that I couldn't get out. So I basically just held on to a bathroom door, you know, until that broke off. And then I was able to just kind of get my way right out of the water.
I just climbed up to a roof of the hotel and then the roof was getting high enough to where I just had to jump on a tree. I just pretty much jumped up on top and stayed on top of the tree until the tsunamis died down. We were grabbing people's arms from the top of the roof, so that people were not drowning. There was a lot of very old people, a lot of people that were unable to swim in these conditions. And it was just tough seeing people who weren't strong enough to get on a tree. And we did everything we could to grab people, but the water was just so powerful that you can only hold onto people for so long before they either slipped out of their hands or some were strong enough to hold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming again!
KING: Probably three, four hours after the third tsunami, I heard him yelling my name. And I was yelling his name for hours, too. And we just bumped into each other and gave each other a big hug and said, let's get the hell out of here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Two people safe and sound tonight.
This special edition of 360 continues. The world pitching in to help, California playing a big part, a close-up look at urgent race to save lives.
And as bad as it is, disease could actually double the death toll. Avoiding a second wave after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We've been getting some e-mails from some of our viewers who right now are sitting at home waiting for phone calls, for e- mails, for anything to let them know a friend or a loved one is alive in the aftermath of this disaster.
We want to tell you about one New York woman who has turned her own search for relatives into a search for relief aid.
Here's CNN's Mary Snow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHANIKA RANSINGHE, SEARCHING FOR FAMILY: It's driving us crazy that we're sitting here, like, when we're hungry, we get to eat something.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-four-year-old Shanika Ransinghe shock has turned into a desperate search for information about missing family members in Galle, Sri Lanka. Her uncle is among the missing. Two other members of her extended family, a mother and her disabled daughter, did not survive when a roof collapsed over them. Her father struggles with words to describe the horror.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE, BROTHER OF TSUNAMI VICTIM: This is something that you don't want to wish for your worst enemy. It's like -- it reminds me of biblical times, like flood in the bible times.
SNOW: Shanika is spending most of her waking hours trying to get information, mainly from the Internet. SHANIKA RANSINGHE: I just try to stay as occupied as possible, but, at a point, it kind of drives you crazy when that's -- what you're trying to do is just stay occupied.
SNOW: Part of the information she learned was that the harrowing pictures of a train swallowed by the sea hit close to home. Extended family members were on board.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE: A human part of you feels so angry, because I'm sure you've heard like the lack of a warning system. Like, there's no reason a train should have been traveling down a coast.
SNOW: But the anger has also turned into action. Shanika and her sister are among members of her community's temple collecting everything from clothes to canned foods to medical supplies. And there's also a need for tools and a need for information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother is missing.
SNOW: This Buddhist priest at a nearby temple has been monitoring Sri Lankan broadcasting, trying to help link families with missing relatives.
PERCY NANAYAKKARA, TEMPLE MEMBER: This is sort of like a nerve center where all people contact.
SNOW: And they share grief.
SAHAN RANSINGHE, SEARCHING FOR FAMILY: There's a sense of community and everybody is helping out. I know most of these people have work today. And they're taking time off to help.
SNOW: These sisters are hoping to take time off to go to Sri Lanka themselves to deliver aid and help rebuild.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE: A pair of hands sometimes is more valuable than any money. So, just to go and be close to them and not just my own family. There's nothing I wouldn't be willing to do.
Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And we'll talk about what you can do in just a moment.
First, another story, though. We haven't heard directly from President Bush about the disaster, but the White House announced today the president will make a speech about the disaster after a National Security Council meeting tomorrow morning -- not a speech, but he will make comments tomorrow morning.
He's also directed the U.S. government to take a leading role in the rescue and relief efforts in Asia. Across the United States, of course, as you just saw, indeed, around the world, people are already pitching in ways large and small.
Ted Rowlands looks now at what one California agency is doing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Employees here have cut vacation short and are working around the clock preparing medical relief supplies for victims of the tsunamis. Direct Relief International is a private, nonprofit near Santa Barbara, California, one of the dozens of agencies around the world working overtime to try to get help to Southeast Asia.
THOMAS TIGHE, PRESIDENT & CEO, DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: We're more than happy to kind of pair up with anybody and let them take advantage of the aircraft.
ROWLANDS: President and CEO Thomas Tighe says the outpouring of support for relief has been phenomenal. Companies have pledged to donate medical supplies, medication. FedEx has even also donated the use of a 747. Getting these supplies off the ground is urgent, says Tighe, but there's also a danger of delivering them too soon.
TIGHE: Logistics in the affected regions are already tough. So we want to make sure that what we send is not clogging up the arteries any further.
ROWLANDS: Another complicating factor is getting through government regulations in not one, but several countries. An example is India's new regulation prohibiting pharmaceutical deliveries without a special, difficult-to-obtain certificate. An e-mail received here from India this morning confirmed that, despite the situation there, the restriction has not been lifted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have to provide the certificate in order for the goods to come in. So, that's definitely a delay in India for pharmaceuticals.
ROWLANDS: Phones here have been ringing steadily with donations. Direct Relief already has one of largest standing inventories of medical relief supplies in the United States.
BETH PITTON-AUGUST, SENIOR MANAGER, PHILANTHROPIC INVESTMENT: we also know that the need is really beyond what we are able to handle, and we know that our partners, our corporate donors really want to be proactive in situations like this.
ROWLANDS (on camera): One of the things that they do have ready to go, cases of antibiotics. The belief is that, in the days and weeks to come, several countries will have a need for this medicine.
(voice-over): One of the major concerns is children.
DR. BILL MORTON, DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: The lives of children are very fragile. And certain solutions, such as oral rehydration solutions for diarrheal illnesses, will become very important.
ROWLANDS: The first pallets of medical supplies are expected to leave here sometime tomorrow. It is expected that the shipments will continue for months.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Goleta, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, the food, the medicine, the money, it's starting to flow in, but, of course, it takes time. And getting it to those in need is a difficult task, indeed.
Joining us via videophone from Phuket, Thailand, is Promboon Panitchkpakdi of the relief agency CARE.
We appreciate you joining us today.
How many people still don't know what happened to loved ones, and how are people finding each other right now in Phuket?
PROMBOON PANITCHKPAKDI, CARE INTERNATIONAL: Well, we've been working in many of the provinces along the coast, and we have that found there's many separated families.
There's people in agony. There's a lot of -- just everywhere, we've been finding that houses have been wrecked. Many children have had a very difficult time. And what we're trying to do is that here there's people, bodies of people being brought to temples nearby and they are trying to find out who's who. Relatives are trying to find out where their husbands, wives, children are.
And it's really -- it's really a very, very, very big problem. And, right now, we're finding that, even more and more, more bodies are being brought to these places. Relatives are trying to find people. Doctors, there's a big need for doctors, for people to help, social workers. People are just hanging around, waiting to hear whether they -- find their relatives.
It's really, really a bad situation. Worse than that, we've seen that there's nobody really helping on the counseling side. People are really in agony. And there has to be people that can say, what's next, what happens to them after going through the worst disaster in their lives, how to put your life back together again.
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: People are afraid. People living next to the coast, the islands, are afraid to go back.
We're seeing that there's a lot of people who have their livelihoods totally related to the sea and to the beaches are afraid to go back. These are very poor people. And it's also very bad how -- what they can do next.
Secondly, there's a large part of it are tourists. Phuket and many of these islands are main tourist centers worldwide and there's many foreigners all around that are seeking. It's very hard translating and getting the message out, trying to find -- a lot of people still have hope that their relatives are still out there. For example, this is Robert Nitam (ph). He's the CARE country director in Nepal. And his wife and his family have been here. He was lost in -- also from Phangnga. And we've been trying very hard to identify where we can find him. And there's many cases like this. It's just -- it's just the type and an effort to get people to meet, and it's very, very hard.
And we have people working in many provinces. There are other NGOs. Fortunately, Thailand, there's a lot of people that are giving charity into these places.
COOPER: Yes.
PANITCHKPAKDI: They're trying to organize that, getting to the most people, talking with the people, and not treating them just as victims only. So, we really have to start working on this very hard.
COOPER: And, at this point, so much of our...
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: For several months, there will still be a lot that we'll have to follow up and after.
But the most important part is, how do we get it over this week, maybe this week and next week and trying to get supplies down there? Even one of the things (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was, there's not enough medicine. Coffins are available. We see mosques making coffins from wood that they can find in the place.
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: It's very, very bad.
Right now, they estimate that there's 2,000 people who have died and probably 10,000 people have been affected.
COOPER: Promboon, I just want to step in here, Promboon. We've been talking to Promboon Panitchkpakdi.
We appreciate you joining us, Promboon.
There is so much need there in Phuket, Thailand. It is nice to see the wats, the Buddhist temples, bearing a big part of the load at this point, people actually bringing the bodies of their loved ones to their local temple for identification, to try to have some sort of central meeting point, because, at this point, the government of Thailand is swamped trying to respond to all those in need.
If you want to help the victims, here's how. We have a list of organizations working right now to provide relief, Red Cross, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders. There's a number of great organizations out there. You can log on to CNN.com. Look for how to help. There are dozens of links there, literally dozens of them, lots more on the story as well, that, of course, at CNN.com. 360 next, our special edition continues. Fearing the future. As horrible as these scenes are, they could get worse. We're going to tell you why ahead.
Also tonight, one family's trip to paradise and how they narrowly survived, and another family's unbearable burden caught in the calamity and more remarkable stories ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all we heard this was mighty bang and the next thing, the place was flooded. It was up to there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were absolutely certain that we were going to die. Then we found a safe place up in these mountains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Part of the reason we've been doing a two-hour expanded edition of 360 tonight, because this disaster is so large and the information still continues to come in, new developments coming in minute by minute.
We have some new video that we have just received. I have actually just gotten a quick look at it during -- at the commercial break. We want to play it for you. We do want to warn you, however, you may find it disturbing. It's not too gruesome, but you do see some people being swept away. This video was taken at the Kumbala (sic) resort, a resort in Thailand, Phuket.
Again, this is video that we have just gotten in from the Kumbala (sic) resort in Phuket, Thailand. As you can see, the water, it was down below on the floor. It is now up on the area where the videographer was standing a short time ago. Earlier, you saw two people actually being swept away, and you can see, it just keeps on going.
Let's watch this again. We are going to remove the Chyron at the bottom of the screen, so you will have a clearer view.
As we said, this video just coming in. This is actually the Kamala. I said Kumbala. That's wrong. It's the Kamala resort in Phuket, Thailand. But, again, these videos -- these are home videos just that have been coming in, in drips and drabs as people return, as people make their way to Bangkok and other big cities, where they reach in contact with news organizations.
And you can see people just not sure what to do. The man here on the balcony -- literally, the water is rising up before your eyes. And they're there all the sudden, it's all around them.
And the water just kept on coming. We've heard that over and over, that just new video to CNN. In Indonesia right now, the official death count is just over 4,700, but the final toll is widely expected to be much, much higher. A number of news organizations quote the nation's health minister right now as putting the figure at more than 27,000. And, as we said, that number at this points, it's all academic. The numbers are definitely going to grow.
Communication with the stricken area of Banda Aceh is extremely difficult, information very tough to get.
CNN's Mike Chinoy joins us now from Banda Aceh. We warn you, again, some of the video that Mike is going to show you is very graphic.
Mike, what's the latest?
CHINOY: Hello, Anderson.
Well, here today, four days after the disaster, there are still bodies littering the streets here in Banda Aceh, many people lying unburied in the streets, or bodies laid out in courtyards, decaying in the tropical heat. There have been mass graves that have been dug on the outskirts of the city.
One that I saw had about 1,000 people with bulldozers pushing bodies into a big pit. One of the big concerns, obviously, with so many decomposing bodies is the question of health here. That's compounded the possibilities of epidemics from all the bodies of people and farm animals, also fears that the water supply here could be contaminated.
And, of course, the big question now is, how's the aid effort going? And so far, the answer is very, very slowly -- Anderson.
COOPER: Mike, the pictures that we're seeing as you're talking of people just looking at bodies and bodies outside a pit, and now we're seeing a bulldozer coming to remove debris, but also to remove bodies. What is the procedure?
I mean, I don't want to get too graphic here or too grisly. But this is a real health concern, having bodies, as you said, lying out on the streets. We're seeing this big ditch here filled with water. What do they do with the bodies? I mean, are they just trying to get mass graves and just burying people in?
CHINOY: Yes, what you're seeing there is a mass grave. The procedure is that bodies are being delivered in trucks and pick-up trucks as they're collected around the city. They're being driven to this mass grave. Others are being dug. There, volunteer workers are just unloading the bodies in a pile. And those bulldozers have dug the big trenches and the bodies are just shoveled like so much garbage and covered over with dirt.
The race here is to get the bodies covered up as quickly as possible. But whether that's going to do enough in terms of sanitation is anybody's guess, and of course what we're seeing is just around this big town, Banda Aceh, there are big stretches of this province that nobody has been to, that we have no information, where hundreds of thousands of people live. And there is real concern that there are many, many other people -- are dead, that there are bodies decomposing in heat all over the place. And no clean up, no rescue, no help has gotten to these areas -- Anderson.
COOPER: I just want to repeat to our viewers what you just said, hundreds -- I mean, hundreds of thousands of people in some of these areas that was literally hardest hit, and we simply do not know the status of these people. We simply do not know. It's a good bet, though, that not much aid, not much relief, if any, has gotten to those people, because reporters haven't been able to get there.
So that death toll number that we gave you earlier, very likely to rise. Mike Chinoy doing a great job in Banda Aceh. It's a hard place to get to. We appreciate you joining us, thanks for your efforts, Mike.
Coming up next on 360, a shattered land. A widening field of ruin is just beginning to be revealed. We'll have the latest to show you.
And a story of a brother and sister saved from the waves as told through their father's eyes and in his voice.
Plus, it has happened before, the ravenous power of a rogue wave, here at home in Alaska. We'll talk to one survivor. The Alaska tsunami. And more stories of unlikely survival ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a terrible roaring. We looked through the glass door and this torrent of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) water just came down the steps and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the doors and washed me away into the play (ph) room. And glass doors were smashed by the water and I just couldn't keep my footing. I was very frightened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. In just a minute, I'm going to talk to a father who I've just been talking to right now, who is about to go in search of his son, who is missing right now in Thailand. First, let's take a look at the latest developments in tonight's "Reset."
CNN now confirms that 33,000 people have died in the Asian tsunami and in its aftermath. The final toll could be close to double that number.
The World Health Organization says that survivors need clean water, sanitary conditions as soon as can be, or disease could kill tens of thousands more.
President Bush will make his first on-camera remarks about the situation tomorrow morning, after he holds a National Security Council meeting by video conference from his ranch in Texas.
Well, we've been telling you so many stories of people who are missing, people who have been found. One American who is missing tonight is a man by the name of Ed Aleo Jr., he has not been found yet in Thailand. His father, Dr. Ed Aleo Sr., of Kingston, New York, is setting out tomorrow on what will be a long and difficult journey to find him. Dr. Aleo joins me now.
I appreciate you to being here. I'm really sorry it's under this situation.
DR. ED ALEO SR., SON MISSING IN THAILAND: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: When was the last time you heard from your son?
ALEO: I talked to my son on Christmas Day, Christmas morning, 8:30 in the morning, he called me from the island.
COOPER: He was on a pretty remote Thai island.
ALEO: Very remote, yes.
COOPER: And just traveling there with friends?
ALEO: Well, he went there, this island, Kopanyan (ph) it's called -- it's an island off of the southern coast of Thailand, just almost between Thailand and Burma. And he has a fiancee there. And...
COOPER: She's Burmese?
ALEO: A Burmese girl. And she finally got her passport to leave Burma. It's hard for women to get passports.
COOPER: Right. Yes, it's a difficult thing to do.
ALEO: And now she has to wait six months to come to the United States. So they were going to spend three months there, and then she was going to go to school and take some English.
COOPER: So he called you Christmas morning and said what?
ALEO: He said he was having a good time. Christmas morning, 8:00 for us was Christmas evening, 8:00 for them. So it was 8:00 in the evening on Christmas Day for him, 12 hours before the tsunami.
COOPER: What -- and he sounded good. He sounded happy. And he's an experienced traveler. So he has been in some tough spots before?
ALEO: Both my sons are very experienced. They've traveled through Asia. My son Eddie has been in Thailand for probably two years, off and on. My other son Brian is in Vietnam teaching English in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City.
COOPER: Do you think he's still on the island. I mean, have you gotten any word about this island?
ALEO: I called the State Department. And they didn't quite know where the island was. You hear about Phuket, Phuket is 200 miles south of this island. This island is like a dot in the Andaman Sea.
COOPER: And a lot of travelers, they want to go as far out as possible because there are not other travelers on these islands. I mean, they have been in the area -- you know, so go to Ko Phi Phi and then the farther you go out the fewer travelers there are there.
ALEO: Right. And it's a remote island. It's an island that is surrounded by beaches and huts. There's no electricity on this island, Anderson. It's an island that has no structures, like you saw in Phuket. And it's very few people.
COOPER: You're going to be flying out tomorrow morning.
ALEO: I fly tomorrow morning.
COOPER: It's a long flight. Tokyo to Bangkok. I know you're going to Saigon to pick up your other son. How are you going to get out to this island?
ALEO: Well, my plans are to find my son. And I'm going to find him.
COOPER: It's OK, take your time.
ALEO: He's experienced. He knows what he's doing. I have a lot of confidence in my son. He's -- I'm sure he's on the island. He probably can't get off the island. Even from to come from Rangoon (ph), the city closest to this island, takes two hours by a boat. It's sort of a canoe-type boat. It goes about six to 12 miles an hour. So it takes a while to get there. And when you leave southern Thailand, you can see Burma.
COOPER: It's that close.
ALEO: That close. And you leave Burma -- the tip of Burma -- the southern tip of Burma, and you go to this island.
COOPER: What do you want people who are sitting at home watching this across America, across parts of the world, to know?
ALEO: I guess I want them to know that traveling is exciting. I'm glad my son did this. I want him to travel. I like the fact they travel. But you never know what's going to happen. You have to be experienced. My son is very experienced. He's a rock climber. He's a survivor. He's an adventurer.
And I'd like -- you know, I just think you have to take care. But I don't think you should not go. I wouldn't want anybody to think they can't go. This is a freaky thing. This is -- a 9 point on the Richter scale is unheard of in 40 years.
COOPER: When you go to tomorrow, when you come back with your son and his fiancee and your other son, I hope you'll come on the program and we'll all look back on this.
ALEO: I'll be glad to do that, and I will bring him back.
COOPER: Dr. Aleo, thank you.
ALEO: I appreciate it.
COOPER: We'll be praying for you.
ALEO: Thank you .
COOPER: CNN has received hundreds of e-mails from people like Dr. Aleo, hoping to get word about loved ones in the disaster zone. Here are just a few of them.
One person writes in, "We're anxious to hear any word of John Kent, our British friend whom we believe was traveling in Thailand or possibly one of the islands affected by the tsunami." That was sent by misowski@comcast.net.
Here's another one from kcgwatkins@aol.com. "I'm looking for my aunt, Theresa Stone, a Texan teaching in Malaysia. She was on holiday in Sri Lanka with a fellow traveler when the tsunami hit -- both are now missing."
If you want to spread the word about a missing relative or friend, you can write to us at tsunami@CNN.com, and we'll put it on the web site.
360 next, the day the wave raised an Alaskan town. A survivor recalls the terror.
And we'll take the devastation to "The Nth Degree," describing the indescribable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Panic. People trying to get out of the first floor because it was happening so quickly. People running from the seaside and people getting caught up in the water. So there was fear, general fear, because no one had seen it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, Thailand is one of the hardest hit countries, of course. Already getting some heartbreaking kinds of visitors, relatives of people who are now missing.
We just heard from Dr. Aleo, who's going tomorrow. Matthew Chance joins us from Phuket with some of their stories -- Matthew.
CHANCE: Anderson, there are so many stories like that of Dr. Aleo. People here gathering in the main square in Phuket, this paradise island, where so many tourists come from around the world and have to come to spend the Christmas period.
People gathering there to register with diplomatic missions from around the world who have set up emergency desks there to try and see which of their nationals are still in the island, on the island.
Also, to pin photographs of their missing loved ones on notice boards around the area, outside the town hall in Phuket. In a sort of desperate bid to try and get some information that may lead people to connect with the people they've -- the people they've lost.
We spoke to a number of mothers and fathers that have come there from overseas. One couple in particular from Sweden, in fact, who traveled all the way from Sweden to Phuket in order to find their 30- year-old daughter, who they hadn't heard from after the day of Christmas, December the 26th.
And there are so many stories like that, Anderson.
And it's an interesting situation, as well, because there is a huge relief effort under way on the part of the Thai authorities, not just to take care of the many, many thousands of Thais who have been displaced and, of course, killed in this disaster, but also to take care of the tourists.
It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. And that presents its own particular challenges for the Thai authorities. There's a problem of language. Volunteers coming forward from the expatriate communities here in Phuket and around Thailand to try and give some assistance in translation. Identifying the bodies of foreigners who obviously are being found.
Some of them in their swimming costumes and their bikinis, washed up from the beaches. It's making identification extremely difficult for the Thai authorities here, Anderson.
COOPER: Matthew Chance, reporting from Phuket. Matthew, thank you.
This time yesterday, we got a taste of the harrowing story of a father on vacation in Thailand with his family when the tsunami hit. The father was reporter John Irvine of ITN.
Today, he walks us through the horror step by step with his family.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN IRVINE, ITN CORRESPONDENT: The children were playing on the beach when I came running down to find them and my wife Libby. The sea of Ko Yao was a flat calm but with one big exception: a 20-foot wave was coming in shore, very quickly indeed.
Five-year-old Peter was staring at the wave, mesmerized. I lurched forward and grabbed him.
Obviously, with the wave pursuing us pretty rapidly, Peter and I were moving rather more quickly than we are this morning. My wife, Libby, and my daughter, Elizabeth, headed for our bungalow over there, but I knew myself and the little fellow here simply wouldn't make it.
We listened to the wave breaking on the beach. There was a big bang as it came through those trees. I supposed we'd reached about here before we were -- we were washed away. We were then carried about 40 yards.
The wave carried us both through this little gap between these two bungalows. All the time, I was acutely aware of all the debris that the wave had picked up on its journey.
Peter and I ended up actually down there in this field. And here are some of the tree trunks and other bits of debris that the wave carried with us. Fortunately, they missed us.
(voice-over) Afterwards, we find that my wife had gone through a similar experience. Only our daughter had made it to the bungalow, which was itself swamped. Nine-year-old Elizabeth was tumbled around. The furniture and fittings were destroyed, but miraculously, she suffered only cuts and bruises.
Some of the buildings here were damaged structurally, so powerful was the tsunami. We lost pretty much all of our belongings, but we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate.
As for this resort itself, the general manager is promising he'll be back in business within a fortnight.
John Irvine, ITV News, Ko Yao, Thailand.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, 360 next, America's been hit by killer waves before. When we come back, you're going to hear one man who was then a child and you'll hear his amazing experience in a tsunami in Alaska.
Also tonight, when words fail us, take tsunamis to "The Nth Degree." And more of the latest from people caught in nature's wrath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I had to run. They had overtaken me, and I was knocked over by two waves, pushing me into a bar I was at. I crawled up into the D.J. booth overlooking the dance floor and managed to -- luckily, the building did not collapse like the buildings all around me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Tsunamis are typically a Pacific phenomena. In fact it's a Japanese word that means harbor wave. And the one that hit the Indian Ocean rim was felt throughout the Pacific.
What was left of it is believed to have arrived in Alaska early Monday morning, measuring just four inches when it struck the coast.
But 40 years ago, a monster wave, the product of a major earthquake, did strike Alaska. It literally wiped the city of Valdez off the map.
Among the survivors, Fred Christoffersen. He was 12 years old then, and he witnessed the disaster. He told -- firsthand. Earlier today, he told us of his survival in his own words.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRED CHRISTOFFERSEN, VALDEZ SURVIVOR: Valdez is a real beautiful place. You know, the mountains come right out of the water to 6,000 feet and there's all snowcapped and glaciers, and this is a great place for a kid.
The big deal was a freight ship was in, and my playmate and I decided we're going to go down there to the ship. It was a big thing for the community of Valdez was to go down and see the ship when it came in, whether it was once a month or every two months or whatever.
We just walked off the wood portion of the dock when I heard this big boom, and just moments after that, all hell broke loose and the ground started shaking.
And my playmate was from California, and he happened to know what earthquakes were. So he hollered, "Earthquake, run."
Well, I didn't know what an earthquake was. And as we're running, turned around and looked back, and the ship was being lifted up. You could just about see the bottom of it.
And then when it go down in the trough, all you could see were the masts sticking up. In all of the racket that's involved with this, the buildings collapsing, the noise of the earth rumbling, and the water washing debris all around, the tops of the phone poles snapping off, and trying to jump to crevices.
And I was able to get up to you mainland there. I was in water up to my knees. And my little buddy was still about a half a block ahead of me, turned around and hollering and coaching me. "Don't watch, run. Just keep running. Don't look back."
And I end up just staying in Valdez for oh, three days, until I was able to catch a ride out and get with my parents.
My parents were searching for me and trying to find me, and the only word, you know, communications were just by word of mouth. There weren't any radios working at the time. And everything was passed on back to them.
The last I was seen was on the dock and everybody on the dock had perished. So three days later, I show up at the Gateway Lodge, my aunt and uncle's lodge there and where my parents were at.
And my mother, she just turned white, and wanted to know, "Fred, is that you? Is that really you?" And you know, just gave me a big hug and was glad to see me.
And it's a wonder I wasn't punished for being on a dock when I was asked not to go there.
I attribute my well being now to my little playmate who grew up in California, and knew what earthquakes were. And if it wouldn't had been for Danny Feaks (ph), I'd probably be on that list of those who perished.
I never went back down on the waterfront for, oh, I guess it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years, you know, because of the memories. So you know, your lives are changed. People you used to see quite regularly weren't there anymore. And you know, we picked up and did the best we could to go on.
Certainly, I've watched the news of the big quake over in Indonesia. You know, my heart goes out to those folks. I know a lot of them have lost most of their families. And I know what it was like to be displaced and see these other people grieving.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: A survivor from Alaska.
We've just learned that the death toll in Indonesia has risen to 27,000. That's the official number, but as we said, that number's likely to grow.
We have another remarkable eyewitness account tonight of the tsunami disaster. Stephanie Sewell, an American, was on a family reunion on Raleigh Beach in Thailand off of the island of Phuket when the waves struck. They were having breakfast getting to leave. Now they're helping with the relief work and she joins us on the phone.
Stephanie, what is the situation you're seeing around you now?
STEPHANIE SEWELL, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, what we're seeing around now is it is fairly ghost town so far as any tourists. There's hardly any of us left. There's a handful of American and Canadians over here. We worked on the beach yesterday. Kind of clearing out.
Because what happened is that it is the -- it has been hit but nowhere hit as Sri Lanka. So no sort of funds or finances have coming in. So these people have lost their livelihood. So we decided as a family, with my three young children, we are going to help and give a helping hand here.
And so we have been burning off a bunch of debris. We've had huge fires on the beach, trying to burn up most of the debris, taking boats out of trees. Retrieving just a lot of stuff and trying to put their lives back together.
And the Thais are so appreciative.
COOPER: Stephanie, I think what you're doing is just extraordinary. So many people obviously have left. SEWELL: It's just been an amazing experience. Because just after what -- seeing the actual tidal wave coming in and slapping us. The actual -- just the actual just reconstructing it all and my girls seeing the whole reconstruction of it all has been quite a healing process for us as a family, and just encouraging the Thais, that we're here for them.
COOPER: Stephanie, how old are your kids?
SEWELL: My kids are 6, 8, and 10. I have three little girls.
COOPER: And what do they think about all this?
SEWELL: The 6-year-old, it sounded a little overwhelming. But she -- we've come to it as a real positive approach.
But it's -- the two older kids are really peaceful about it, real confident. They -- literally, when we were running from the tidal wave, I could hear my 10-year-old, just praying in front of the whole crowd to God, saying just protect everybody. And she had a whole -- just kept climbing that mountain up into the jungles to run from the tidal wave.
They were -- they have just been really calm about it. They've been really helpful. We were in the kitchen washing dishes as a family, helping them just to repair their lives.
COOPER: Stephanie, I think what you're doing is amazing. Stephanie Sewell is staying in Thailand to try to help the people there rebuild their lives, rebuild the beaches.
Stephanie, thanks for joining us tonight.
360 next, when words fail, how do you describe the indescribable? When we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Tonight, take the ineffable to "The Nth Degree." Words fail, except perhaps the one that means exactly that: ineffable, incapable of being put into words. That's where we are in the middle a story that is beyond words.
Catastrophe, cataclysm and disaster are all worn thin, eroded with overuse. They ring false. No longer have the power to conjure up what they ought to conjure, the uncontrollable shivering of awe.
Maybe we shouldn't try at all. Even the Bible doesn't attempt, really, to describe the great flood. Genesis says this, "The waters surged and increased greatly on the Earth. All the high mountains under the whole sky were covered. Everything with the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils, everything on dry land died."
But then pictures also failed. There's no lens good enough, no screen wide enough to show more than a sliver, a tiny single sliver of this terrible story at a time. Really what image could capture, what word could describe a single day on which it's beginning to seem as many people died as did American soldiers during the entire 11 years of the Vietnam War?
In the end, ineffable may really be the very best that we can do.
I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for watching this special edition of 360. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 28, 2004 - 19:00 Â ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Anderson Cooper.
The death toll rises, the losses staggering, and thousands search, hoping for their loved ones will be found alive.
360 starts now.
A loss beyond words. The search for thousands of missing continues while the dead are buried. And doctors rush to contain the spread of disease.
Tonight, a 360 special, The Wave of Destruction, the wave of grief.
Contaminated water, decaying bodies, and not enough help to be found. We'll bring you the latest from the hardest-hit areas, with live reports from Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The littlest victims. Rows of tiny bodies waiting to be identified. One-third of those killed by the waves turn out to be children. Too little to run, too little to understand.
An American family searches for their missing son. Tonight, meet the father who's flying halfway around the world to bring back his boy.
And amidst the horror, there is hope, stories of survival. Tonight, a man who scuba dived through the tsunami, and the supermodel who clung to a tree for eight hours.
ANNOUNCER: This is a special two-hour edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, Wave of Destruction.
COOPER: Good evening again.
We're bringing you an expanded two-hour version of 360 tonight because what started as an undersea earthquake this weekend is now being called one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, in terms of how widespread its effects have been.
Last night at this time, we talked about more than 22,000 people dead. This morning -- the morning -- the number this morning was 33,000. And now, some sources say, it may be 60,000.
The truth is, we don't yet know how many are dead. New bodies are still being found, new stories still coming in, and new images, like this one, still coming in all day long.
We've seen people struggling in water, drowning, beachgoers unsure what was happening, some not running soon enough. As the sun rises Wednesday morning now in Thailand, the beaches there and many other places are still strewn with rubble and debris and, worst of all, bodies, so many bodies. Children, it turns out, make up a very large percentage of the dead, children and the elderly, those too weak or too little to run, those unable to hold on to something solid as the water engulfed them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): In the streets of Phuket, the living search for the faces of their friends and family. Pictures of the dead and missing are posted outside the town hall.
The Johnstons flew in from Sweden to find their missing daughter.
BIRGET JOHNSTON, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL: Yes, but it's better to be here than sitting home and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) see on the television. So we asked to be here and to see what we can do, and if we can find her or figure out what happened to her.
COOPER: When the waves began to hit, it took precious seconds for many to figure out just what was happening.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. This is a tidal wave.
COOPER: Stunned, many simply watched the water as it swamped hotels and beach towns.
This was the scene at one resort in Thailand. This is from a resort in Sri Lanka.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, (expletive deleted), God.
COOPER: The power of the waves left everyone in their path defenseless. Some were caught when they approached the beach to see what was going on.
There are thousands still missing, and now the race is on to find and bury the bodies of the dead before a potentially even deadlier wave of disease hits.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a real concern about disposing of these bodies, but there's also a big concern about the bodies that have not been recovered that are buried in the rubble. And a lot of measures had to be taken to purify the water supply and reduce the contamination that has occurred because of all the dead bodies, and all the debris and so on that had washed into these water sources.
COOPER: Mass graves have already been filled. Many more are still to be dug. Killed by the sea, they'll be buried in the earth without name, without ceremony. There's simply not enough time.
(END VIDEOTAPE) Later this evening on 360, we're going to talk with one American, a doctor, who's going to a place that many others are trying desperately to leave. Ed Aleo Sr., is going to Thailand to search for his son, Ed Aleo Jr. We'll have his story later on 360.
There are so many human stories to tell you about tonight, stories of loss and hope, of courage and compassion. We have reporters standing by in four particularly hard-hit places in South Asia, and we'll be turning to them over the next two hours.
Mike Chinoy is in Indonesia tonight near the epicenter of the undersea quake that started it all. Matthew Chance is on the Thai vacation island of Phuket, which a mecca for tourists from all over the world. Hugh Riminton is in the capital of the island nation of Sri Lanka, which sustained perhaps half of all the waves' fatalities. And Malika Kapur (ph) in Port Blair on the little-known Andaman Islands.
We begin tonight with Mike Chinoy. And we want to warn you, some of the pictures you are about to see are terrible.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've heard the astronomical numbers, but nothing can prepare you for a scene like this, the remains of men, women, and children, about 1,000, the workers say, piled high for burial in a mass grave.
The stench is overpowering, contaminating the area, felling bystanders. The grief is equally powerful.
"I lost everyone and everything," says 30-year-old Yusniati (ph). "My four children and my husband are gone, gone. I was holding my 8- month-old in the waters, but the waves pulled us apart."
But Yusniati knows where her 3-year-old is. She found his body in the street and brought him here.
(on camera): This scene is so horrible, there are no words to describe it. And what makes it even more awful is the fact that the bodies behind me are just a small fraction of the overall number who died here.
(voice-over): "There are still a lot of bodies out there," says Alam Sol (ph), "because so much of Banda Aceh was flooded by the waves."
There's no dignity in this kind of death. It feels more like a garbage dump than a grave. But in their desperate struggle to bury decomposing bodies before the danger of epidemics grows even greater, the authorities have little choice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY: And it's an overwhelming task, as you drive around this city. There are still bodies littering the streets, bodies littering the courtyards, the authorities simply unable to cope with the scale of the disaster.
And that doesn't even begin to account for the hundreds of thousands of people in the outlying rural areas, about whom we have had simply no information. We don't know the scale of the casualties, how many people are dead, how many are alive, what kind of shape they're in, Anderson.
COOPER: So Mike, in those outlying areas, you're saying there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who are -- at this point, no one knows what their status is, and no one has been able to get any relief to them?
CHINOY: That's right. The whole western coast of Aceh province in the northernmost tip of Indonesia is the land mass that is closest to the epicenter of the quake, and all communications have been cut off. The roads have been destroyed. The relief effort organized by the Indonesian government has been slow to get up and running. Even here in Banda Aceh, very, very little help has been made available so far.
And in these outlying areas, large rural communities, people living along the seashore, who would have been very, very vulnerable to the huge tsunami, we just have no information at all about what's happened to them.
COOPER: One can only imagine at this point. Mike Chinoy, thank you very much for that report. A difficult place to report from tonight.
Why some people lived and others died often boiled down really to location and luck, nothing more. Some Californians vacationing in Thailand say they are alive tonight in part because they skipped a yoga class.
James Firmage and his wife and two young daughters went to Phi Phi Island for Christmas. They ended up having to run for their lives. James is now with his family at a hotel in Bangkok. He joins me now by phone.
James, appreciate you joining us tonight. How are your family doing?
Hey, James, it's Anderson in New York. Can you hear me?
Clearly, we're having trouble with James. We'll try to get back. He's in a hotel in Bangkok. He has a remarkable story. We'll get back to him a little bit later, as soon as we get the connection going.
We take you further west now to Sri Lanka. It's an island nation, of course, naked on all sides to the force of that unstoppable sea. And that's where the death toll, for now, at least, seems to be the highest.
CNN's Hugh Riminton reports from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid survival stories, a tale of no survivors. On Sri Lanka's west coast, south of the capital, Colombo, all 1,000 people on this eight-carriage train are now recorded as dead or missing.
It was the same series of waves that hit English tourist Peter Etheridge (ph) on a nearby beach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't believe the power. It was just unbelievable.
RIMINTON: Taken to Colombo's main hospital, he cuts a lonely figure. The wave swept away Pat, his wife of 32 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then it came in again. I could hear my wife scream. I knew where she was, and I was hiding behind a roof, and I went round to get her, and just all hell broke loose. And that was the last time I saw her.
RIMINTON (on camera): Despite the stories in these wards, doctors are being stripped out of the capital, Colombo, to fill the overwhelming needs out in the district hospitals that are bearing the brunt of this medical emergency.
(voice-over): One hundred and twenty-five doctors, many of them volunteers, have already been airlifted to frontline clinics. The burnout rate, just 48 hours before most need to be relieved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The conditions that, you know, you don't have electricity, you don't have water service. The buildings are shattered, hospitals are shattered.
RIMINTON: The immediate needs, antibiotics and painkillers. The medical challenges, wound infection, respiratory problems among those who inhaled water.
And bodies, so many they threaten to contaminate everything.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RIMINTON: The Sri Lankan president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has traveled around the worst-affected areas by helicopter to make her own assessment. She has since declared the medical need to be now the number-one priority. There are many priorities clamoring for that grim title. She has delivered a plan for doctors to be brought out of retirement in Sri Lanka to try to make up the numbers to meet this appalling need, Anderson.
COOPER: Hugh, have we heard from areas not under the control of the government? Because, as we know, there's a civil war that's been going on in Sri Lanka now for quite a while, the Tamil Tigers control, I think, it's the northern part of the country. Are we getting word from that region?
RIMINTON: We are getting word, but as is the case right across Sri Lanka, very often it's patchy. Some of the doctors that have gone into the areas that are government controlled have simply not communicated back to their base since they went in there, up to 48 hours ago. So even the government-controlled areas, there is very patchy communications about what they're confronting and what they need.
We do know from the Tamil-held areas, as you say, in the north and east, that they have issued a request, an urgent request for more doctors and for more medical support.
So one can assume from that, that broadly speaking, the conditions in their areas are very much the same as in the south and the east. There is a desperate need for doctors, a desperate need for medical care of almost every stripe -- antibiotics, painkillers, and so many other things as well -- so that they can get this work done.
COOPER: And that can be said of a number of places hard hit by this, these waves. Hugh Riminton in Colombo, thanks very much.
Just want to point to you have been listening at home, we've now heard from two reporters, one in Indonesia, one in Sri Lanka, both saying that there are large swaths of the country, or areas that were hard hit that we simply do not have information from.
This means the death toll that we've been giving you now, and we've been updating every hour, simply is not accurate. We simply do not know how many people -- we do not understand the scope of this at this point. The numbers could be astronomical.
One of the world's largest-ever relief efforts is under way right now. A U.N. official said that rich nations are stingy in their giving. He said that yesterday. Here's a quick news note about how much has been given so far. The U.S. is offering the most, $35 million, followed by Japan with $30 million. Saudi Arabia has pledged $10 million. Australia is planning to give $7.6 million, and Germany, $2.7 million. And that, of course, just the initial estimates.
Our special addition of 360 continues. The amazing story of a couple who were scuba diving when the tsunami hit. They actually had to grab onto coral under water to stay alive.
Plus, from the cover of "Sports Illustrated" to clinging for her life in a tree, a swimsuit model and her boyfriend caught in the tsunami. She lived. He is missing.
Also tonight, children lost. The tiny faces of tragedy. Thousands washed away, and the grieving parents they've left behind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So many of the pictures we're seeing, shot just on home video, people on vacation. And they keep coming in hour after hour. We're showing them to you as we get them.
Of course,, as we said before, you know, why some people lived and others died often really boiled down to location and probably luck. Some Californians vacationing in Thailand said they are alive tonight because they skipped a yoga class. James Firmage, his wife and two young daughters went to Phi Phi Island for Christmas. It's off the coast of Thailand. They ended up literally running for their lives.
James now with his family at a hotel in Bangkok. He joins me now by phone.
James, how is your wife, how are your two daughters doing?
JAMES FIRMAGE, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, we're, you know, we're shaken and certainly a little scared, a little battered, but overall physically, we're -- I wouldn't call us a picture of health, but certainly feeling very lucky and very fortunate.
We had a good night's sleep, although my youngest climbed into bed with me because she thought another tsunami was going to be coming. And in comparison to so many others who were running side by side that we never saw again, and other people that we saw being washed away, you know, literally, we were running for our lives. I won't ever use that term spartanly again.
COOPER: When you say literally running for your lives, I mean, tell us where you were when the first wave hit.
FIRMAGE: Right. Well, we had checked out of our hotel, so we were walking down along the beach looking for -- actually, it was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a massage on the beach. And my daughter, my youngest daughter, sat down to write in her journal that we've been encouraging her to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We noticed that there was sort of this wonderment and awe with some of the local Thais.
And by the way, if I don't get a chance to thank the generosity of the Thai people on the island, they lost so much and were so generous.
We were sitting on the beach and looking at one of the locals and trying to get her attention, and noticed that the tide, where it should have been high, was low, and that the longtail boats were all on top of the sand.
Then we noticed sort of a sudden and dramatic wave, the water run -- going out, then coming back in in a circular motion. And then another very large wave, maybe three to -- three feet, started coming in bigger. And at that point, the locals grabbed their children and started running.
And I thought -- I still wasn't sure. I made a remark that it looks like a tsunami, sort of half-casually. And then we started running. Then we ran. And I thought, Well, OK, it's going to stop, it's going to hit our ankles. And my youngest daughter dropped her journal, and I went to pick it up.
And when I picked it up, I heard this sound that could only be described as perhaps a jet engine bearing down on us, and trees starting to break. And then what looked like a wave that was 10 to 15 feet -- not in the traditional sense of a wave, but water, massive water rushing at us, closing the gap, you know, maybe 100 yards. And we ran another 100 yards, just probably in 10 seconds flat. I don't think we've ever run that fast.
And my daughter dropped her journal, and she went to pick it up. I literally froze, grabbed her, pushed her along, grabbed the journal, ran through a series of houses of a small village that was -- and I could hear snapping and cracking and popping, horrific sounds, louder than I've ever heard before.
And we made it, through a stroke of luck and pathway to a small restaurant that was in the shape of, ironically, a boat, that we ran up some steps. We kept running until we thought we were safe. And then sort of just -- everything just shut down. And then it happened again 10 minutes later, and then another time, a half-hour after that.
And sometime between that point, myself, my wife, and my oldest daughter ran up the side of a mountain. And, you know, only -- we found them an hour and a half later, thankfully, on top of a mountain peak, the highest part of the mountain, with 200 other people, Thais, many foreigners, all scared out of their wits, not knowing what was going to happen, and rumors were flying.
But from there, we spent a night in the jungle, thinking that was the safest place we were going to be.
COOPER: James, what do you tell your kids? I mean, do they ask why this happened?
FIRMAGE: Thankfully, we haven't had to ask, we haven't had to answer that question. We've just been talking about it, and we talk, and we cry. And we talk, and we cry some more. And then they cry. And for them, it's a different perspective.
My youngest was upset that she lost her little stuffed animal. My oldest was shaking uncontrollably and couldn't tell me why. And we've been describing to them all morning and last night, and the people here have been so gracious. Nobody has been afraid to talk to us. Everybody's been very helpful and overwhelmingly supportive.
And even though the grandson of the king in Thailand passed away, which is akin to George Bush losing his daughters, you know, that's how much they revere and love the king here.
They were gracious enough to ask how we were doing. And one gentleman came down, cooked some rice, brought it up to us from the hill, without thinking about his family. And others would make sure we were OK.
You know, so because of the support from everybody around us and because we had -- we were sleeping with a group of incredibly great people that we've nicknamed, who were always looking out for our children, we didn't have to -- we haven't had to have that conversation. I'm sure we will.
But thankfully, now, they just -- they talk about it, but in a sense that this is a natural thing, and there was nothing anybody could have done to prevent it, and here we are.
COOPER: It's an extraordinary thing, and a difficult thing for us to sort of comprehend. Telling your story...
FIRMAGE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
COOPER: ... just hearing your voice brings it home a little bit. But I don't think anyone who was there can comprehend it, can we?
FIRMAGE: You know, I don't think -- I mean, I can only describe this, the combination of a jet engine getting closer to you, and a piece of wood snapping right behind your ears, I mean, can get a visual of what that would sound like.
But increasing in size, and then seeing water, which we normally treat as sort of a friendly, life-giving thing, to be this monster, that's seeming like it's coming for you. And, of course, it isn't, it's a natural disaster.
But I can't -- I -- that's probably -- maybe I can describe it in words better some other day, but I just have this mental picture. And the aftermath. I mean, there was a whole village that was wiped out. It was there. Ten seconds later, it was gone, floating by.
COOPER: James...
FIRMAGE: People were in the water. We saw one man broken, had his back broken, and people hanging off of roofs. You know, I went down later to take stock, to get some supplies, because I knew we would be there for a day. And there were a number of dead bodies. There were some brave dive teams, people that went -- spent all night, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Samaritans, helping out (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
COOPER: Did your kids, did your kids see that? Did your kids see the bodies?
FIRMAGE: My kids, thankfully, didn't see that part. They did see it when we left the pier, when some Thai people came through with what looked like a baby, who had been wrapped. And we closed -- we covered their eyes, for the most part, but we walked by several bodies that had been wrapped, thankfully so.
COOPER: James, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I don't know what to say, really. I appreciate you being on the program, and I'm very thankful that you and your kids are safe, and you had the presence of mind to run.
FIRMAGE: Well, you know, in a small way, by talking about it, it actually helps all of us. And I just want to say, you know, (SPEAKING THAI) to all of the Thai people and the Ferengs for their generosity and the way people pulled together. And we saw the best of human nature and we saw the worst of it.
COOPER: (SPEAKING THAI) indeed. Thanks...
FIRMAGE: I don't need to mention the worst. I can just celebrate the fact that, you know, there was people, there was -- lost. We were lucky enough to have our passports, and our money and our tickets with us, because we checked out. And, you know, through the grace of whatever higher being you believe in, I didn't take a stupid yoga class, and I went and joined my family, and it just so happens we were in a spot that we could run to higher ground.
COOPER: Amazing. James, I appreciate you joining us. I know you got to go. James Firmage. His wife and daughters are safe tonight in Bangkok. James, thanks for being with us.
In Thailand, the beaches around Phuket are so desirable, there's an international airport there just to fly in vacationers from all over the world. But being that close to the ocean proved deadly for many of those same tourists. Now the search is on for their bodies.
CNN's Matthew Chance is in Phuket tonight. Matthew?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, this is a tragedy of staggering proportions. In Thailand alone, by no means the worst- affected country in the region, there are already 1,500 people confirmed dead, and according to the Thai authorities, another 1,500 missing.
Here in Phuket, the holiday island, a favored destination, as you mentioned, by tourists from around the region and around the world, there are scenes of desperation as people, survivors of this tsunami, have gathered near the town hall, pinning photographs of their loved ones, people they haven't found yet, people they've been separated from, to notice boards in that area.
Diplomatic missions, a set of emergency desks there, not just to give people passports so they can get out of Phuket and return to their homes, but also to register the names of those people who are missing as well.
As I say, at least 1,500 are still unaccounted for, and that figure could rise further, Anderson, because there are still some outlying areas, some of the more remote beaches in the archipelago of islands right behind me here, in this area off the coast of Thailand, that have really not been fully, you know, visited yet by the rescue teams.
There are still reports coming in of absolutely atrocious scenes of bodies strewn along beaches, bodies still hanging in bushes, after the terrible events of a few days ago, when this devastating tsunami struck.
It was really interesting hearing what James, your previous guest, was saying, because the Thai authorities here are really, really struggling to cope with this tragedy, not just with the Thais they, of course, have to rescue, but also with dealing with the many, many foreigners. The language barrier is, of course, making identification of the bodies and getting the survivors together again that much more difficult.
And quite frankly, the Thai authorities, even though they're better equipped than many of the countries in the region, they still don't have adequate resources to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude, Anderson.
COOPER: And it keeps going on and on. Matthew Chance, thanks for that from Thailand tonight.
Our special edition of 360 continues. Reuters is reporting the death toll is approaching 60,000. And for those that survived, another deadly disaster looming over them, disease from the aftermath and the carnage. The race against time to bring in and save thousands more. We're going to talk about that race when we come back.
Also tonight, another story of survival. A "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit model caught in the waves' raging path. Find out how she managed to escape after clinging to a tree for hours.
And a little later, surviving under water. A couple who were scuba diving when disaster struck.
We're covering all the angles on this special edition. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So many stories to tell you about. In a small fishing village in India, an old woman was heard to cry out, "Why did he do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?"
It's a cry that could have come from Thailand or Indonesia, Malaysia or Sri Lanka. There is suffering in so many places tonight.
Joining me from Colombo, Sri Lanka is Alastair Gordon-Gibson of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, one of dozens of agencies doing good work, trying to help the victims.
Alastair, thanks for joining us again tonight. You know, last night when we spoke, the numbers were some 12,000 dead in Sri Lanka. We've just gotten word Reuters is reporting 21,000 confirmed dead.
You say and other health officials are telling us as many people could die from disease now as from the actual tsunamis. Do you think that's true, and how is that possible?
ALASTAIR GORDON-GIBSON, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT SOCIETIES: Yes. As you say, the numbers are changing on a daily basis. Many areas are still yet to be properly surveyed and assessed by the teams. And the risks -- we're all duly concerned now that the longer the search and rescue goes on, and the water levels remain high, the risk of waterborne diseases, dysentery and the worse, could be very, very real. So we're now taking measures that we hope to try to mitigate the effect of that.
COOPER: And what kind of measures can you take? I mean, you know -- you need clean water, sanitation, there's food shortages, disposal of corpses. What's the number-one concern right now, and how are you dealing with it? GORDON-GIBSON: Well, we've got medical teams -- at the present, there's a need for big international support on that side. So we have brought in two medical teams over the last 12 hours with full health clinics and basic health care kits which we can set up in the most affected areas, which could be up and operational within 48 hours.
Supporting these health units will be sterilized, specialized water production units to supply clean drinking water, which is going to be absolutely critical to ensure that any risk of contamination is controlled in some way.
COOPER: And, I mean, we all know what a lot of these areas are like. Sri Lanka has been wrestling with a civil war. The government, limited resources. We've been looking while you're talking, Alastair, pictures of military officials sort of throwing supplies off a flat- bed truck. Are you able to operate in the north of Sri Lanka, the areas controlled by the Tamil separatists?
GORDON-GIBSON: The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has got branches in the north and east, so they're already working with their volunteers up there. And the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, have got offices in five districts in the north and east. So they're supporting the Sri Lankan Red Cross and already bringing in relief supplies.
So the support to the Red Cross from ICRC in the north and east and us from the south and west, we hope, will help mitigate some of these devastating signs that we're seeing everywhere.
COOPER: Alastair, bottom line, for someone sitting at home right now in America, what's the best thing they can do? Is it giving money? Is it sending clothes? What is it?
GORDON-GIBSON: Well, most of the big relief agencies and, of course, the governments have issued now appeals for support. There are surveys ongoing now. The United Nations have got surveys on the ground. The International Red Cross, the ICRC and ourselves, and the Sri Lankan Red Cross.
I think responding in a controlled way to the targeted demands of those appeals would probably be the most effective way to respond. There's always a risk, of course, of too many very well-thought out activities and donations coming in, which could clog up the system, which could be wrongly targeted.
So I think focusing on the assessments, responding to balanced, targeted appeals to the government, to the agencies on the field, I think, is probably the most responsible and productive way of helping.
COOPER: And we're going to give some Web site information to people who do want to help very shortly.
Alastair Gordon-Gibson, I know you've got to go. You've got a million things to do. We appreciate you joining us and taking the time. Thanks, Alastair. Another factor to consider, an economic impact of the tsunamis. Here's a 360 fast fact. The world's largest reinsurer says the disaster will likely cause economic damage of at least -- we're talking at least -- $13.6 billion. And, of course, this is early days.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) says insurers are likely to pick up only a small portion of that tab since the tsunami hit mainly underdeveloped regions. This year alone, before the tsunami struck, natural disasters around the world cost insurance industry $40 billion, the most expensive year ever.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The littlest victims. Rows of tiny bodies waiting to be identified. One-third of those killed by the waves turn out to be children too little to run, too little to understand.
An American family searches for their missing son. Tonight, meet the father who's flying halfway around the world to bring back his boy.
And amidst the horror, there is hope, stories of survival. Tonight, a man who scuba dived through the tsunami and the super model who clung to a tree for eight hours. 360 continues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god, this is a tidal wave. This is scary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Welcome back to this special two-hour edition of 360. We've expanded the program tonight because there is so much new information still coming in, even over the course of this hour.
This disaster has already established itself as one of the most dreadful and difficult stories of our time, with images equally difficult to look at. Now, many of the pictures we've been showing you almost -- they don't make sense at first. You kind of have to see them over and over. You have to look at them closely to sort of figure out what you're actually looking at.
Whole places turned upside down and inside out, things in the water that shouldn't be in the water, things on land that shouldn't be on land. And in far too many places, what at first you take to be piles of clothing scattered here or there, or something floating in the water, it's not piles of clothing at all. They are, of course, bodies.
So many bodies, you begin to wonder how anyone made it out alive. But people did, thankfully. One American couple on vacation in Sri Lanka may have survived the tsunami because they were not at their hotel. This is what it looked like at one hotel in Sri Lanka when the waves first began.
A man clinging to a tree. Hotel guests just not sure what was happening, not sure what to do. At this hotel, guests climbed to higher floors for their lives. As we said, the people you're about to meet didn't have that option.
Warren and Julie Lavender, they weren't at the hotel. The tsunami literally rolled right over them, the first wave did. They were scuba diving. Warren Lavender relived his incredible tale when I spoke to him on the phone earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Warren, you were actually underwater when the first wave hit. What did it feel like?
WARREN LAVENDER, SURVIVED TSUNAMI: As close as I can describe it, it felt like there was an underwater hurricane. It was blowing -- I mean, the current was so strong that everyone was just hanging on to coral or rocks or whatever they could.
COOPER: So you literally grabbed onto coral. How long did you stay down before you surfaced?
LAVENDER: Well, pretty soon after that, and primarily because I was running out of air, we had to come up. But, as we came up, you know, the current that we had felt previously had just kind of disappeared. And like I said, when we got to the surface, we had no idea what had happened.
COOPER: And the boat was still there, the dive boat?
LAVENDER: Yes, it was.
COOPER: So at this point, you decided, obviously, to abort the dive and to get back to shore?
LAVENDER: Yes. And we just -- even then, we started going back to shore. And it seemed like the end of a perfectly normal dive. But as we got back to shore, we noticed that, you know, we were saying, where's the beach? And then, you know, it had just disappeared.
And then we noticed the waves were basically destroying one of the hotels. And then, when we looked at the faces of the dive instructor and the boat pilots, we knew that there was something wrong because they had, you know, just that look on their faces.
COOPER: Then what happened? Did you -- I mean, was your hotel still standing?
LAVENDER: Well, ours -- we had no idea at that time. We had to go to the -- we headed toward the dive center that was in this little estuary. And just as we were about to go up it, we noticed a wave. And what it was -- the tidal wave had gone up the estuary and it was coming back down.
And when we saw that, we started screaming at the driver -- or the boat pilot to get us to shore, which he did, and I'm sure saved our lives. And then everyone just basically hit the shore and ran for it.
COOPER: So you were still in the boat when you saw this wave coming back at you. How big was the wave? How fast was it moving?
LAVENDER: Well, I couldn't judge how fast it was moving because it was behind me. We were just running. But, you know, it was carrying everything that it had destroyed on its way in. It was carrying it on its way out. So there was furniture and buildings and pieces of everything. And, you know, just as fast as we could run, we ran. And just as we thought that was over, then another wave came in from the ocean. And then it was, again, you know, run.
COOPER: Did people sort of come together in this situation? I mean, often in these situations, you know, we see people really reaching out to one another, local people there. Were they very helpful to you?
LAVENDER: Well, they were almost -- it was almost in a bizarre sense, because there was people whose shops we had been at the day before, where they're stopping on the street, kind of amongst the panic, seeing us, and they said all they want to know is if we're OK.
And a friend of ours that was with us, she happened to be on the beach, and a family took her in and fed her and gave her water. And we were evacuated finally, and we spent the night on the floor of a family that lived on higher ground. And we had no idea who they were. But they stayed up all night and -- you know, I mean, some of these people are making $25 a week, and, like, it just -- it was just unbelievable. I mean, and they totally took care of us because we just felt totally helpless. And they, you know, they just took care of everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, the Lavenders fly out of Sri Lanka first thing in the morning. They're going to head to Kuwait, where they're both school teachers. Warren told me they leave with heavy hearts and a feeling of guilt. They can simply go, of course, while the Sri Lankans faces the task of rebuilding their shattered lives.
Next on this special edition of 360, a "Sports Illustrated" model caught in the tsunami. So many different stories to tell you about. She hangs onto a tree for hours. We'll have her story of survival ahead.
Plus, a little boy lost and then found. The reunion with his family, but there is still heartache for them tonight.
And so many of the dead, so many of the injured are children, their parents facing grief that is simply too much to bear.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: This was the scene in Patong beach in Phuket, some of the new video we have been getting in throughout the day. Hard to imagine.
When that wave came down, it not only killed thousands of young children, it turned many others into orphans. Among the pictures of people sobbing over the deaths of family members are images of young ones searching for their parents.
Here, a young boy named Karl (ph) from Sweden. He's holding up a sign for a photographer in Phuket, Thailand. He's missing his parents and two brothers right now.
At a hospital in Phuket, this girl, 10 years old, she's from Germany. Her name is Sophia (ph). She waits for any sign of her parents. You can see the scars from the water and debris clearly visible on her face. These kids are at least able to ask for help.
Eric Philips tonight reports on one child who could not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hannas Bergstrum's (ph) face bears the marks of his ordeal. When he first came to this Thailand hospital, the nurses didn't know who he was or where he came from, so they started calling him "Boo boo."
The Swedish toddler had been found wrapped in blankets and covered in scratches, still at the top of a hill in Phuket after the wave hit. Two American tourists, Rebecca Bedall (ph) and boyfriend Ron Rubin, carried him to the local hospital.
RON RUBIN, FOUND BOY: When we had him, he couldn't even say a word.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just thought...
RUBIN: We thought his whole family was washed out to sea. We had no idea.
PHILIPS: Hannas' photo was posted on the Internet, and within hours, he was identified by family members in Europe and reunited with his grandmother.
RUBIN: It was just a miracle getting him to the hospital from the -- you know, from up in the jungle like we've got a ride. I mean, you know, how did that happen?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a miracle that he got to the hospital.
PHILIPS: The boy's father and grandfather have been found and are in a different hospital. His mother is still missing.
Eric Philips, CNN, Atlanta. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You know, it's hard to make sense of some of these numbers, but right now, we heard a statistic though that just -- it's hard to believe. A third of the people killed, it's believed at this point, by the tsunami were children. Many were buried in mass graves, like this one in India. Relatives, of course, still in shock and mourning, are all mourning along the edge.
Elsewhere, a mother cries over the bodies of her two young daughters, her hands caressing their faces. Another image shows the tremendous grief, relatives of victims wailing out at a mass burial site.
The sad fact is there will be more scenes like this. More victims will be found. And there's no guarantee that the children who did survive are safe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Their grief is nearly too much to bear. Parents, whose precious children were suddenly pulled out to sea or crushed by the oncoming water, their young lives lost in the crash of a wave.
In Thailand and India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, desperate parents search for their children on the streets and in the morgues, hoping, praying their babies are still alive.
The images are haunting. A mother searches through lifeless bodies looking for her child. A father carries the body of his dead child. Parents without children, children without parents. This boy cries out for his mother as she is laid to rest.
According to UNICEF, one-third of the tens of thousands of lives lost in the tsunami are children, the littlest victims, too young to understand the wrath of nature, too small to escape the danger.
CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Kids are the least able to run, the least able to -- they can run, but the least able to withstand the flooding or holding on. So that's one of the reasons children have been particularly affected.
COOPER: UNICEF officials also point out that in the countries hardest hit by this disaster, where between one-third and one-half of the population is under 18 years of age, children could account for up to half the death toll when the final figures are tallied.
And while there's little risk of another deadly wave, the danger is far from over for these families, so many already torn apart by tragedy.
CHRISTOPH GORDER, AMERICARES: The larger task at hand will be keeping the survivors alive, the millions of people who were displaced and vulnerable in these unsanitary conditions.
COOPER: The heat, exposed corpses, lack of food and clean water could lead to epidemics of cholera and other diseases, and that could double the number of child victims. The future swept away in a monumental disaster that may change the face of a continent for generations to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We've already gotten some e-mails from viewers who said they don't want to see those pictures, they don't want to see such images of children. And I know it's hard to look at, and it's something none of us want to see, but this is what's happening to ten of thousands of people right now on the other side of the world, and we thought you should know about it.
Our special edition of 360 continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: When we first saw the video yesterday, we were overwhelmed, of course, by the power of this wave. And there were several waves that hit Phuket. It crashed down the Thai resort and destroyed anything in its path, killed indiscriminately.
You know, one of the realities of a disaster like this, whether it's a hurricane or anything like this, is that it doesn't really discriminate. The young are killed, so are the old, the rich and the poor.
We're trying to bring you in this special two-hour edition of 360 as many stories of survival as we can. So add this one to the list. A supermodel was in Phuket when the tsunami hit. Adaora Udoji has her story of survival.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Petra Nemcova, a 25-year-old supermodel with a hectic schedule, making magazine covers, like "Sports Illustrated" in 2003, sometimes working with her boyfriend of two years, British fashion photographer Simon Atlee. This, a 2005 calendar they shot together.
They've been working so hard, she surprised Atlee with a trip to Thailand's renowned resort haven of Phuket. She told the head of her modeling agency they were relaxing inside when the tsunami horror began.
FAITH KATES, NEXT MODELS PRESIDENT: She heard the kids screaming. She went to see what was going on, because she was so concerned about the kids. And as she went to see what was going on, the wave hit her bungalow, and it washed it away.
UDOJI: Nemcova and Atlee grabbed onto a palm tree as the ocean, debris, and bodies rushed by. In an instant, she told friends Atlee was swept away. She held on for eight hours, despite major injuries.
KATES: She's got a broken pelvis. She's got some shattered bones in her hip. UDOJI: But more than anything, says her long-time friend Jamison Ernest, who helped track her down in a Thai hospital, Nemcova is desperate to find Atlee.
JAMISON ERNEST, FRIEND OF PETRA NEMCOVA: My biggest concern right now is that whatever way anybody can to help identify Simon or find Simon, you know, at her Web site. There's people on it 24 hours a day right now.
UDOJI: Nemcova's sister immediately jumped on a plane from New York to Thailand, enormously relieved. They're all praying Atlee is somewhere recovering, too.
Adaora Udoji, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: When 360 returns, a man on a mission to find his son. You're going to meet a father who leaves tomorrow, hoping to bring his boy back.
We'll also tell the tale of an entire train full of people lost to the sea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360.
COOPER: And welcome back to special edition. PAULA ZAHN NOW won't be seen tonight, as we continue our coverage of the wave of destruction and the wave of grief, so many stories to tell you about, so many stories still developing at this hour.
Let's begin by looking up close at one city. Some of the most disturbing images from this disaster were pictures from Galle, Sri Lanka, people trapped in fast-moving water, some unable to hold on. They were simply swept away. Cars and buses floated like boats, people trying to ride them to stay afloat. You may remember, we showed you these pictures last night. The long red objects near the top of your screen there are railroad passenger cars.
Today, we've learned more about one particular train. You're about to see some very disturbing images of the terrible thing that happened to the people on board.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): This train was called the Queen of the Sea, and today we saw what sea did to it. A thousand people had bought tickets on the train for a Sunday ride along the Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, to Galle.
First almost all of them, this train became a death trap; 15 miles short of Galle, the train stopped because of high water. People from nearby houses climbed aboard to stay dry. Then the tsunami hit. In the streets of Gaulle, the water overwhelmed, buildings and cars and people washed away. Today, back in the jungle, those train cars lay scattered like toys.
The force of the water tore the wheels and axles off some of them. The track is twisted upright like a fence. Of the 1,000 passengers, at least 800 are dead. Trucks hauled away piles of bodies. At least 200 victims were carried away to be buried or cremated, their last rights next to the Queen of the Sea and the sea that killed them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We can only imagine their families not knowing that their loved ones have already been buried in some cases. Sri Lankan officials say the death count on their island is at least 18,000. Reuters reporting earlier in this hour, it's now up to 21,000, but those numbers meaningless at this point. Those numbers are going to continue to grow.
CNN's overall death toll from the disaster, right now, at least 33,000. But, as you heard perhaps in our last hour of coverage, there are a whole parts of certain areas that have not even been accounted for. Mike Chinoy of CNN was in Indonesia. In the area directly hit, the area where the tsunami first went, no one has even been able to get to those areas to find out. And he said there are hundreds and thousands of people living in those areas. It's simply too early at this point to give an accurate assessment of the death toll.
The Associated Press has put it much higher, about 52,000. We'll just keep watching it. Here's a way to visualize that. About that many people, about 52,000 people can fit in Yankee Stadium at one time.
There's at least one man in Galle we have heard about who lost his home and his place of business, but he finds himself not out of work today. He's an undertaker, and right now he is very much in demand.
With more from this beleaguered center, CNN's Satinder Bindra joins us live -- Satinder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This eyewitness video obtained by CNN shows a 20-feet high tidal wave ripping through southern Sri Lankan town of Galle. The savage sea consumes everything in its wake: homes, cars, vans and furniture. Terrified residents try to find cover.
Many don't make it. Within seconds, hundreds in this town, many of them children, are engulfed by the raging waters. Doctors say most of the children died of trauma injuries. Others drowned. Police say about 1,000 Galle residents died when this entire train was tossed around like a toy. Nature didn't even spare miles and miles of steel track. Galle's more able-bodied adults survived by clamoring upon buses. As the waters receded, these survivors had the unbearable task of taking their loved ones home. Others frantically search everywhere for their family members. Unable to find them, their grief explodes. Thousands in this world- famous beach resort and across Sri Lanka are still missing, but hopes of finding any more survivors are fading fast. Rescue workers in Galle are now only pulling out badly decomposed corpses.
(on camera): Over the past two days, more than 800 bodies have been brought to this hospital alone. With 300 of them still unidentified, hospital staff here are now organizing mass burials.
(voice-over): Fearing the spread of illness and disease, authorities organize a massive clean-up. Mangled cars are pulled out from under tons of rubble. Dozens and dozens of such buses will soon end up in the scrap yard.
These holiday season signs seem eerily out of place in this grief-stricken city. No one here wants to participate in New Year's celebrations. Sri Lanka has already declared five days of national mourning and all Galle's residents can think of is thousands of their countrymen, friends and family members who will not be with them in the new year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BINDRA: Anderson, several international teams have now arrived here in Sri Lanka. The Russians are here. The French are here. The Indians are here, and the Israelis are here.
But the priority now seems to try to stop the spread of disease. It's feared, even more people could die of disease know that the tsunami itself if proper precautions aren't taken, and soon.
COOPER: Satinder, there had been a report that Israel -- I'm reading this off of the wire right now -- that Israel had offered aid and also a medical delegation, I think 150-member delegation. There's a story going around that Sri Lanka accepted the aid, but refused Israeli personnel coming to the country. Is that true?
BINDRA: Well, we understand that Israeli personnel are already here.
And what's happening at the moment is here in Sri Lanka to take just as much of the international community is giving. Sri Lanka has said for the last two days, Anderson, it's desperate for everything from food, medicine, water supplies, that sort of thing.
And medical personnel are the greatest need of the hour, because if illness and disease start here, then, in these hot conditions, perhaps it will not be easy to stop disease from spreading and spreading fast. So, the priority now remains to get medical teams and to provide emotional support to tens and thousands of shattered victims.
COOPER: So, just so we're clear and accurate, Satinder, the word that Israeli personnel are on the ground, you got that from the government or that's just -- that's sort of the word out there? BINDRA: We are hearing from Colombo that Israeli teams have arrived.
Where they've been deployed will be a matter of some time. We understand the Israelis could be going to the north and to the east. Now, this information may change as time goes along. But this is the information that I'm getting here in Galle from the capital, Colombo.
COOPER: OK, Satinder Bindra, we appreciate it. And I know it's a difficult thing gathering information right now, especially in Galle, isolated, as it is, due to the events. Satinder, thanks very much.
Here in the United States, of course, there's many people sitting at home, some no doubt watching right now, waiting for word from friends and relatives in the ravaged countries. A few survivors are already home.
In Los Angeles, we found a very happy reunion, indeed, tempered by a very harrowing story. Justin Barth his friend, Jake King, left Los Angeles last Thursday on what was meant to be a vacation in Phuket, Thailand. Here, in their own words, is what happened to them on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUSTIN BARTH, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I was having breakfast, and the wave just came in and took everybody on the beach with it. Life kind of slows down in a split-second. Can't really think during those circumstances. You just have to kind of react and go.
It kind of just looked like a regular high-tide wave, and then it just got more intense and more intense. And then everybody started running off of the beach. And it was chaos. There was cars floating down the street.
JAKE KING, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: The water got so high that we -- the door would only open outward. We were unable to push the door outward. So, in order to get out, he had to grab just bottles and chairs and shattered the window. And that's when the water basically pushed me all the way back. He floated his way out.
The TVs and mattresses inside the rooms were floating, you know, at shoulder high, and the water was coming so quick that I couldn't get out. So I basically just held on to a bathroom door, you know, until that broke off. And then I was able to just kind of get my way right out of the water.
I just climbed up to a roof of the hotel and then the roof was getting high enough to where I just had to jump on a tree. I just pretty much jumped up on top and stayed on top of the tree until the tsunamis died down. We were grabbing people's arms from the top of the roof, so that people were not drowning. There was a lot of very old people, a lot of people that were unable to swim in these conditions. And it was just tough seeing people who weren't strong enough to get on a tree. And we did everything we could to grab people, but the water was just so powerful that you can only hold onto people for so long before they either slipped out of their hands or some were strong enough to hold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming again!
KING: Probably three, four hours after the third tsunami, I heard him yelling my name. And I was yelling his name for hours, too. And we just bumped into each other and gave each other a big hug and said, let's get the hell out of here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Two people safe and sound tonight.
This special edition of 360 continues. The world pitching in to help, California playing a big part, a close-up look at urgent race to save lives.
And as bad as it is, disease could actually double the death toll. Avoiding a second wave after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We've been getting some e-mails from some of our viewers who right now are sitting at home waiting for phone calls, for e- mails, for anything to let them know a friend or a loved one is alive in the aftermath of this disaster.
We want to tell you about one New York woman who has turned her own search for relatives into a search for relief aid.
Here's CNN's Mary Snow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHANIKA RANSINGHE, SEARCHING FOR FAMILY: It's driving us crazy that we're sitting here, like, when we're hungry, we get to eat something.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-four-year-old Shanika Ransinghe shock has turned into a desperate search for information about missing family members in Galle, Sri Lanka. Her uncle is among the missing. Two other members of her extended family, a mother and her disabled daughter, did not survive when a roof collapsed over them. Her father struggles with words to describe the horror.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE, BROTHER OF TSUNAMI VICTIM: This is something that you don't want to wish for your worst enemy. It's like -- it reminds me of biblical times, like flood in the bible times.
SNOW: Shanika is spending most of her waking hours trying to get information, mainly from the Internet. SHANIKA RANSINGHE: I just try to stay as occupied as possible, but, at a point, it kind of drives you crazy when that's -- what you're trying to do is just stay occupied.
SNOW: Part of the information she learned was that the harrowing pictures of a train swallowed by the sea hit close to home. Extended family members were on board.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE: A human part of you feels so angry, because I'm sure you've heard like the lack of a warning system. Like, there's no reason a train should have been traveling down a coast.
SNOW: But the anger has also turned into action. Shanika and her sister are among members of her community's temple collecting everything from clothes to canned foods to medical supplies. And there's also a need for tools and a need for information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother is missing.
SNOW: This Buddhist priest at a nearby temple has been monitoring Sri Lankan broadcasting, trying to help link families with missing relatives.
PERCY NANAYAKKARA, TEMPLE MEMBER: This is sort of like a nerve center where all people contact.
SNOW: And they share grief.
SAHAN RANSINGHE, SEARCHING FOR FAMILY: There's a sense of community and everybody is helping out. I know most of these people have work today. And they're taking time off to help.
SNOW: These sisters are hoping to take time off to go to Sri Lanka themselves to deliver aid and help rebuild.
SHANIKA RANSINGHE: A pair of hands sometimes is more valuable than any money. So, just to go and be close to them and not just my own family. There's nothing I wouldn't be willing to do.
Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And we'll talk about what you can do in just a moment.
First, another story, though. We haven't heard directly from President Bush about the disaster, but the White House announced today the president will make a speech about the disaster after a National Security Council meeting tomorrow morning -- not a speech, but he will make comments tomorrow morning.
He's also directed the U.S. government to take a leading role in the rescue and relief efforts in Asia. Across the United States, of course, as you just saw, indeed, around the world, people are already pitching in ways large and small.
Ted Rowlands looks now at what one California agency is doing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Employees here have cut vacation short and are working around the clock preparing medical relief supplies for victims of the tsunamis. Direct Relief International is a private, nonprofit near Santa Barbara, California, one of the dozens of agencies around the world working overtime to try to get help to Southeast Asia.
THOMAS TIGHE, PRESIDENT & CEO, DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: We're more than happy to kind of pair up with anybody and let them take advantage of the aircraft.
ROWLANDS: President and CEO Thomas Tighe says the outpouring of support for relief has been phenomenal. Companies have pledged to donate medical supplies, medication. FedEx has even also donated the use of a 747. Getting these supplies off the ground is urgent, says Tighe, but there's also a danger of delivering them too soon.
TIGHE: Logistics in the affected regions are already tough. So we want to make sure that what we send is not clogging up the arteries any further.
ROWLANDS: Another complicating factor is getting through government regulations in not one, but several countries. An example is India's new regulation prohibiting pharmaceutical deliveries without a special, difficult-to-obtain certificate. An e-mail received here from India this morning confirmed that, despite the situation there, the restriction has not been lifted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have to provide the certificate in order for the goods to come in. So, that's definitely a delay in India for pharmaceuticals.
ROWLANDS: Phones here have been ringing steadily with donations. Direct Relief already has one of largest standing inventories of medical relief supplies in the United States.
BETH PITTON-AUGUST, SENIOR MANAGER, PHILANTHROPIC INVESTMENT: we also know that the need is really beyond what we are able to handle, and we know that our partners, our corporate donors really want to be proactive in situations like this.
ROWLANDS (on camera): One of the things that they do have ready to go, cases of antibiotics. The belief is that, in the days and weeks to come, several countries will have a need for this medicine.
(voice-over): One of the major concerns is children.
DR. BILL MORTON, DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL: The lives of children are very fragile. And certain solutions, such as oral rehydration solutions for diarrheal illnesses, will become very important.
ROWLANDS: The first pallets of medical supplies are expected to leave here sometime tomorrow. It is expected that the shipments will continue for months.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Goleta, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, the food, the medicine, the money, it's starting to flow in, but, of course, it takes time. And getting it to those in need is a difficult task, indeed.
Joining us via videophone from Phuket, Thailand, is Promboon Panitchkpakdi of the relief agency CARE.
We appreciate you joining us today.
How many people still don't know what happened to loved ones, and how are people finding each other right now in Phuket?
PROMBOON PANITCHKPAKDI, CARE INTERNATIONAL: Well, we've been working in many of the provinces along the coast, and we have that found there's many separated families.
There's people in agony. There's a lot of -- just everywhere, we've been finding that houses have been wrecked. Many children have had a very difficult time. And what we're trying to do is that here there's people, bodies of people being brought to temples nearby and they are trying to find out who's who. Relatives are trying to find out where their husbands, wives, children are.
And it's really -- it's really a very, very, very big problem. And, right now, we're finding that, even more and more, more bodies are being brought to these places. Relatives are trying to find people. Doctors, there's a big need for doctors, for people to help, social workers. People are just hanging around, waiting to hear whether they -- find their relatives.
It's really, really a bad situation. Worse than that, we've seen that there's nobody really helping on the counseling side. People are really in agony. And there has to be people that can say, what's next, what happens to them after going through the worst disaster in their lives, how to put your life back together again.
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: People are afraid. People living next to the coast, the islands, are afraid to go back.
We're seeing that there's a lot of people who have their livelihoods totally related to the sea and to the beaches are afraid to go back. These are very poor people. And it's also very bad how -- what they can do next.
Secondly, there's a large part of it are tourists. Phuket and many of these islands are main tourist centers worldwide and there's many foreigners all around that are seeking. It's very hard translating and getting the message out, trying to find -- a lot of people still have hope that their relatives are still out there. For example, this is Robert Nitam (ph). He's the CARE country director in Nepal. And his wife and his family have been here. He was lost in -- also from Phangnga. And we've been trying very hard to identify where we can find him. And there's many cases like this. It's just -- it's just the type and an effort to get people to meet, and it's very, very hard.
And we have people working in many provinces. There are other NGOs. Fortunately, Thailand, there's a lot of people that are giving charity into these places.
COOPER: Yes.
PANITCHKPAKDI: They're trying to organize that, getting to the most people, talking with the people, and not treating them just as victims only. So, we really have to start working on this very hard.
COOPER: And, at this point, so much of our...
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: For several months, there will still be a lot that we'll have to follow up and after.
But the most important part is, how do we get it over this week, maybe this week and next week and trying to get supplies down there? Even one of the things (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was, there's not enough medicine. Coffins are available. We see mosques making coffins from wood that they can find in the place.
(CROSSTALK)
PANITCHKPAKDI: It's very, very bad.
Right now, they estimate that there's 2,000 people who have died and probably 10,000 people have been affected.
COOPER: Promboon, I just want to step in here, Promboon. We've been talking to Promboon Panitchkpakdi.
We appreciate you joining us, Promboon.
There is so much need there in Phuket, Thailand. It is nice to see the wats, the Buddhist temples, bearing a big part of the load at this point, people actually bringing the bodies of their loved ones to their local temple for identification, to try to have some sort of central meeting point, because, at this point, the government of Thailand is swamped trying to respond to all those in need.
If you want to help the victims, here's how. We have a list of organizations working right now to provide relief, Red Cross, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders. There's a number of great organizations out there. You can log on to CNN.com. Look for how to help. There are dozens of links there, literally dozens of them, lots more on the story as well, that, of course, at CNN.com. 360 next, our special edition continues. Fearing the future. As horrible as these scenes are, they could get worse. We're going to tell you why ahead.
Also tonight, one family's trip to paradise and how they narrowly survived, and another family's unbearable burden caught in the calamity and more remarkable stories ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all we heard this was mighty bang and the next thing, the place was flooded. It was up to there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were absolutely certain that we were going to die. Then we found a safe place up in these mountains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Part of the reason we've been doing a two-hour expanded edition of 360 tonight, because this disaster is so large and the information still continues to come in, new developments coming in minute by minute.
We have some new video that we have just received. I have actually just gotten a quick look at it during -- at the commercial break. We want to play it for you. We do want to warn you, however, you may find it disturbing. It's not too gruesome, but you do see some people being swept away. This video was taken at the Kumbala (sic) resort, a resort in Thailand, Phuket.
Again, this is video that we have just gotten in from the Kumbala (sic) resort in Phuket, Thailand. As you can see, the water, it was down below on the floor. It is now up on the area where the videographer was standing a short time ago. Earlier, you saw two people actually being swept away, and you can see, it just keeps on going.
Let's watch this again. We are going to remove the Chyron at the bottom of the screen, so you will have a clearer view.
As we said, this video just coming in. This is actually the Kamala. I said Kumbala. That's wrong. It's the Kamala resort in Phuket, Thailand. But, again, these videos -- these are home videos just that have been coming in, in drips and drabs as people return, as people make their way to Bangkok and other big cities, where they reach in contact with news organizations.
And you can see people just not sure what to do. The man here on the balcony -- literally, the water is rising up before your eyes. And they're there all the sudden, it's all around them.
And the water just kept on coming. We've heard that over and over, that just new video to CNN. In Indonesia right now, the official death count is just over 4,700, but the final toll is widely expected to be much, much higher. A number of news organizations quote the nation's health minister right now as putting the figure at more than 27,000. And, as we said, that number at this points, it's all academic. The numbers are definitely going to grow.
Communication with the stricken area of Banda Aceh is extremely difficult, information very tough to get.
CNN's Mike Chinoy joins us now from Banda Aceh. We warn you, again, some of the video that Mike is going to show you is very graphic.
Mike, what's the latest?
CHINOY: Hello, Anderson.
Well, here today, four days after the disaster, there are still bodies littering the streets here in Banda Aceh, many people lying unburied in the streets, or bodies laid out in courtyards, decaying in the tropical heat. There have been mass graves that have been dug on the outskirts of the city.
One that I saw had about 1,000 people with bulldozers pushing bodies into a big pit. One of the big concerns, obviously, with so many decomposing bodies is the question of health here. That's compounded the possibilities of epidemics from all the bodies of people and farm animals, also fears that the water supply here could be contaminated.
And, of course, the big question now is, how's the aid effort going? And so far, the answer is very, very slowly -- Anderson.
COOPER: Mike, the pictures that we're seeing as you're talking of people just looking at bodies and bodies outside a pit, and now we're seeing a bulldozer coming to remove debris, but also to remove bodies. What is the procedure?
I mean, I don't want to get too graphic here or too grisly. But this is a real health concern, having bodies, as you said, lying out on the streets. We're seeing this big ditch here filled with water. What do they do with the bodies? I mean, are they just trying to get mass graves and just burying people in?
CHINOY: Yes, what you're seeing there is a mass grave. The procedure is that bodies are being delivered in trucks and pick-up trucks as they're collected around the city. They're being driven to this mass grave. Others are being dug. There, volunteer workers are just unloading the bodies in a pile. And those bulldozers have dug the big trenches and the bodies are just shoveled like so much garbage and covered over with dirt.
The race here is to get the bodies covered up as quickly as possible. But whether that's going to do enough in terms of sanitation is anybody's guess, and of course what we're seeing is just around this big town, Banda Aceh, there are big stretches of this province that nobody has been to, that we have no information, where hundreds of thousands of people live. And there is real concern that there are many, many other people -- are dead, that there are bodies decomposing in heat all over the place. And no clean up, no rescue, no help has gotten to these areas -- Anderson.
COOPER: I just want to repeat to our viewers what you just said, hundreds -- I mean, hundreds of thousands of people in some of these areas that was literally hardest hit, and we simply do not know the status of these people. We simply do not know. It's a good bet, though, that not much aid, not much relief, if any, has gotten to those people, because reporters haven't been able to get there.
So that death toll number that we gave you earlier, very likely to rise. Mike Chinoy doing a great job in Banda Aceh. It's a hard place to get to. We appreciate you joining us, thanks for your efforts, Mike.
Coming up next on 360, a shattered land. A widening field of ruin is just beginning to be revealed. We'll have the latest to show you.
And a story of a brother and sister saved from the waves as told through their father's eyes and in his voice.
Plus, it has happened before, the ravenous power of a rogue wave, here at home in Alaska. We'll talk to one survivor. The Alaska tsunami. And more stories of unlikely survival ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a terrible roaring. We looked through the glass door and this torrent of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) water just came down the steps and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the doors and washed me away into the play (ph) room. And glass doors were smashed by the water and I just couldn't keep my footing. I was very frightened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. In just a minute, I'm going to talk to a father who I've just been talking to right now, who is about to go in search of his son, who is missing right now in Thailand. First, let's take a look at the latest developments in tonight's "Reset."
CNN now confirms that 33,000 people have died in the Asian tsunami and in its aftermath. The final toll could be close to double that number.
The World Health Organization says that survivors need clean water, sanitary conditions as soon as can be, or disease could kill tens of thousands more.
President Bush will make his first on-camera remarks about the situation tomorrow morning, after he holds a National Security Council meeting by video conference from his ranch in Texas.
Well, we've been telling you so many stories of people who are missing, people who have been found. One American who is missing tonight is a man by the name of Ed Aleo Jr., he has not been found yet in Thailand. His father, Dr. Ed Aleo Sr., of Kingston, New York, is setting out tomorrow on what will be a long and difficult journey to find him. Dr. Aleo joins me now.
I appreciate you to being here. I'm really sorry it's under this situation.
DR. ED ALEO SR., SON MISSING IN THAILAND: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: When was the last time you heard from your son?
ALEO: I talked to my son on Christmas Day, Christmas morning, 8:30 in the morning, he called me from the island.
COOPER: He was on a pretty remote Thai island.
ALEO: Very remote, yes.
COOPER: And just traveling there with friends?
ALEO: Well, he went there, this island, Kopanyan (ph) it's called -- it's an island off of the southern coast of Thailand, just almost between Thailand and Burma. And he has a fiancee there. And...
COOPER: She's Burmese?
ALEO: A Burmese girl. And she finally got her passport to leave Burma. It's hard for women to get passports.
COOPER: Right. Yes, it's a difficult thing to do.
ALEO: And now she has to wait six months to come to the United States. So they were going to spend three months there, and then she was going to go to school and take some English.
COOPER: So he called you Christmas morning and said what?
ALEO: He said he was having a good time. Christmas morning, 8:00 for us was Christmas evening, 8:00 for them. So it was 8:00 in the evening on Christmas Day for him, 12 hours before the tsunami.
COOPER: What -- and he sounded good. He sounded happy. And he's an experienced traveler. So he has been in some tough spots before?
ALEO: Both my sons are very experienced. They've traveled through Asia. My son Eddie has been in Thailand for probably two years, off and on. My other son Brian is in Vietnam teaching English in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City.
COOPER: Do you think he's still on the island. I mean, have you gotten any word about this island?
ALEO: I called the State Department. And they didn't quite know where the island was. You hear about Phuket, Phuket is 200 miles south of this island. This island is like a dot in the Andaman Sea.
COOPER: And a lot of travelers, they want to go as far out as possible because there are not other travelers on these islands. I mean, they have been in the area -- you know, so go to Ko Phi Phi and then the farther you go out the fewer travelers there are there.
ALEO: Right. And it's a remote island. It's an island that is surrounded by beaches and huts. There's no electricity on this island, Anderson. It's an island that has no structures, like you saw in Phuket. And it's very few people.
COOPER: You're going to be flying out tomorrow morning.
ALEO: I fly tomorrow morning.
COOPER: It's a long flight. Tokyo to Bangkok. I know you're going to Saigon to pick up your other son. How are you going to get out to this island?
ALEO: Well, my plans are to find my son. And I'm going to find him.
COOPER: It's OK, take your time.
ALEO: He's experienced. He knows what he's doing. I have a lot of confidence in my son. He's -- I'm sure he's on the island. He probably can't get off the island. Even from to come from Rangoon (ph), the city closest to this island, takes two hours by a boat. It's sort of a canoe-type boat. It goes about six to 12 miles an hour. So it takes a while to get there. And when you leave southern Thailand, you can see Burma.
COOPER: It's that close.
ALEO: That close. And you leave Burma -- the tip of Burma -- the southern tip of Burma, and you go to this island.
COOPER: What do you want people who are sitting at home watching this across America, across parts of the world, to know?
ALEO: I guess I want them to know that traveling is exciting. I'm glad my son did this. I want him to travel. I like the fact they travel. But you never know what's going to happen. You have to be experienced. My son is very experienced. He's a rock climber. He's a survivor. He's an adventurer.
And I'd like -- you know, I just think you have to take care. But I don't think you should not go. I wouldn't want anybody to think they can't go. This is a freaky thing. This is -- a 9 point on the Richter scale is unheard of in 40 years.
COOPER: When you go to tomorrow, when you come back with your son and his fiancee and your other son, I hope you'll come on the program and we'll all look back on this.
ALEO: I'll be glad to do that, and I will bring him back.
COOPER: Dr. Aleo, thank you.
ALEO: I appreciate it.
COOPER: We'll be praying for you.
ALEO: Thank you .
COOPER: CNN has received hundreds of e-mails from people like Dr. Aleo, hoping to get word about loved ones in the disaster zone. Here are just a few of them.
One person writes in, "We're anxious to hear any word of John Kent, our British friend whom we believe was traveling in Thailand or possibly one of the islands affected by the tsunami." That was sent by misowski@comcast.net.
Here's another one from kcgwatkins@aol.com. "I'm looking for my aunt, Theresa Stone, a Texan teaching in Malaysia. She was on holiday in Sri Lanka with a fellow traveler when the tsunami hit -- both are now missing."
If you want to spread the word about a missing relative or friend, you can write to us at tsunami@CNN.com, and we'll put it on the web site.
360 next, the day the wave raised an Alaskan town. A survivor recalls the terror.
And we'll take the devastation to "The Nth Degree," describing the indescribable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Panic. People trying to get out of the first floor because it was happening so quickly. People running from the seaside and people getting caught up in the water. So there was fear, general fear, because no one had seen it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, Thailand is one of the hardest hit countries, of course. Already getting some heartbreaking kinds of visitors, relatives of people who are now missing.
We just heard from Dr. Aleo, who's going tomorrow. Matthew Chance joins us from Phuket with some of their stories -- Matthew.
CHANCE: Anderson, there are so many stories like that of Dr. Aleo. People here gathering in the main square in Phuket, this paradise island, where so many tourists come from around the world and have to come to spend the Christmas period.
People gathering there to register with diplomatic missions from around the world who have set up emergency desks there to try and see which of their nationals are still in the island, on the island.
Also, to pin photographs of their missing loved ones on notice boards around the area, outside the town hall in Phuket. In a sort of desperate bid to try and get some information that may lead people to connect with the people they've -- the people they've lost.
We spoke to a number of mothers and fathers that have come there from overseas. One couple in particular from Sweden, in fact, who traveled all the way from Sweden to Phuket in order to find their 30- year-old daughter, who they hadn't heard from after the day of Christmas, December the 26th.
And there are so many stories like that, Anderson.
And it's an interesting situation, as well, because there is a huge relief effort under way on the part of the Thai authorities, not just to take care of the many, many thousands of Thais who have been displaced and, of course, killed in this disaster, but also to take care of the tourists.
It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. And that presents its own particular challenges for the Thai authorities. There's a problem of language. Volunteers coming forward from the expatriate communities here in Phuket and around Thailand to try and give some assistance in translation. Identifying the bodies of foreigners who obviously are being found.
Some of them in their swimming costumes and their bikinis, washed up from the beaches. It's making identification extremely difficult for the Thai authorities here, Anderson.
COOPER: Matthew Chance, reporting from Phuket. Matthew, thank you.
This time yesterday, we got a taste of the harrowing story of a father on vacation in Thailand with his family when the tsunami hit. The father was reporter John Irvine of ITN.
Today, he walks us through the horror step by step with his family.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN IRVINE, ITN CORRESPONDENT: The children were playing on the beach when I came running down to find them and my wife Libby. The sea of Ko Yao was a flat calm but with one big exception: a 20-foot wave was coming in shore, very quickly indeed.
Five-year-old Peter was staring at the wave, mesmerized. I lurched forward and grabbed him.
Obviously, with the wave pursuing us pretty rapidly, Peter and I were moving rather more quickly than we are this morning. My wife, Libby, and my daughter, Elizabeth, headed for our bungalow over there, but I knew myself and the little fellow here simply wouldn't make it.
We listened to the wave breaking on the beach. There was a big bang as it came through those trees. I supposed we'd reached about here before we were -- we were washed away. We were then carried about 40 yards.
The wave carried us both through this little gap between these two bungalows. All the time, I was acutely aware of all the debris that the wave had picked up on its journey.
Peter and I ended up actually down there in this field. And here are some of the tree trunks and other bits of debris that the wave carried with us. Fortunately, they missed us.
(voice-over) Afterwards, we find that my wife had gone through a similar experience. Only our daughter had made it to the bungalow, which was itself swamped. Nine-year-old Elizabeth was tumbled around. The furniture and fittings were destroyed, but miraculously, she suffered only cuts and bruises.
Some of the buildings here were damaged structurally, so powerful was the tsunami. We lost pretty much all of our belongings, but we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate.
As for this resort itself, the general manager is promising he'll be back in business within a fortnight.
John Irvine, ITV News, Ko Yao, Thailand.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, 360 next, America's been hit by killer waves before. When we come back, you're going to hear one man who was then a child and you'll hear his amazing experience in a tsunami in Alaska.
Also tonight, when words fail us, take tsunamis to "The Nth Degree." And more of the latest from people caught in nature's wrath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I had to run. They had overtaken me, and I was knocked over by two waves, pushing me into a bar I was at. I crawled up into the D.J. booth overlooking the dance floor and managed to -- luckily, the building did not collapse like the buildings all around me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Tsunamis are typically a Pacific phenomena. In fact it's a Japanese word that means harbor wave. And the one that hit the Indian Ocean rim was felt throughout the Pacific.
What was left of it is believed to have arrived in Alaska early Monday morning, measuring just four inches when it struck the coast.
But 40 years ago, a monster wave, the product of a major earthquake, did strike Alaska. It literally wiped the city of Valdez off the map.
Among the survivors, Fred Christoffersen. He was 12 years old then, and he witnessed the disaster. He told -- firsthand. Earlier today, he told us of his survival in his own words.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRED CHRISTOFFERSEN, VALDEZ SURVIVOR: Valdez is a real beautiful place. You know, the mountains come right out of the water to 6,000 feet and there's all snowcapped and glaciers, and this is a great place for a kid.
The big deal was a freight ship was in, and my playmate and I decided we're going to go down there to the ship. It was a big thing for the community of Valdez was to go down and see the ship when it came in, whether it was once a month or every two months or whatever.
We just walked off the wood portion of the dock when I heard this big boom, and just moments after that, all hell broke loose and the ground started shaking.
And my playmate was from California, and he happened to know what earthquakes were. So he hollered, "Earthquake, run."
Well, I didn't know what an earthquake was. And as we're running, turned around and looked back, and the ship was being lifted up. You could just about see the bottom of it.
And then when it go down in the trough, all you could see were the masts sticking up. In all of the racket that's involved with this, the buildings collapsing, the noise of the earth rumbling, and the water washing debris all around, the tops of the phone poles snapping off, and trying to jump to crevices.
And I was able to get up to you mainland there. I was in water up to my knees. And my little buddy was still about a half a block ahead of me, turned around and hollering and coaching me. "Don't watch, run. Just keep running. Don't look back."
And I end up just staying in Valdez for oh, three days, until I was able to catch a ride out and get with my parents.
My parents were searching for me and trying to find me, and the only word, you know, communications were just by word of mouth. There weren't any radios working at the time. And everything was passed on back to them.
The last I was seen was on the dock and everybody on the dock had perished. So three days later, I show up at the Gateway Lodge, my aunt and uncle's lodge there and where my parents were at.
And my mother, she just turned white, and wanted to know, "Fred, is that you? Is that really you?" And you know, just gave me a big hug and was glad to see me.
And it's a wonder I wasn't punished for being on a dock when I was asked not to go there.
I attribute my well being now to my little playmate who grew up in California, and knew what earthquakes were. And if it wouldn't had been for Danny Feaks (ph), I'd probably be on that list of those who perished.
I never went back down on the waterfront for, oh, I guess it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years, you know, because of the memories. So you know, your lives are changed. People you used to see quite regularly weren't there anymore. And you know, we picked up and did the best we could to go on.
Certainly, I've watched the news of the big quake over in Indonesia. You know, my heart goes out to those folks. I know a lot of them have lost most of their families. And I know what it was like to be displaced and see these other people grieving.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: A survivor from Alaska.
We've just learned that the death toll in Indonesia has risen to 27,000. That's the official number, but as we said, that number's likely to grow.
We have another remarkable eyewitness account tonight of the tsunami disaster. Stephanie Sewell, an American, was on a family reunion on Raleigh Beach in Thailand off of the island of Phuket when the waves struck. They were having breakfast getting to leave. Now they're helping with the relief work and she joins us on the phone.
Stephanie, what is the situation you're seeing around you now?
STEPHANIE SEWELL, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, what we're seeing around now is it is fairly ghost town so far as any tourists. There's hardly any of us left. There's a handful of American and Canadians over here. We worked on the beach yesterday. Kind of clearing out.
Because what happened is that it is the -- it has been hit but nowhere hit as Sri Lanka. So no sort of funds or finances have coming in. So these people have lost their livelihood. So we decided as a family, with my three young children, we are going to help and give a helping hand here.
And so we have been burning off a bunch of debris. We've had huge fires on the beach, trying to burn up most of the debris, taking boats out of trees. Retrieving just a lot of stuff and trying to put their lives back together.
And the Thais are so appreciative.
COOPER: Stephanie, I think what you're doing is just extraordinary. So many people obviously have left. SEWELL: It's just been an amazing experience. Because just after what -- seeing the actual tidal wave coming in and slapping us. The actual -- just the actual just reconstructing it all and my girls seeing the whole reconstruction of it all has been quite a healing process for us as a family, and just encouraging the Thais, that we're here for them.
COOPER: Stephanie, how old are your kids?
SEWELL: My kids are 6, 8, and 10. I have three little girls.
COOPER: And what do they think about all this?
SEWELL: The 6-year-old, it sounded a little overwhelming. But she -- we've come to it as a real positive approach.
But it's -- the two older kids are really peaceful about it, real confident. They -- literally, when we were running from the tidal wave, I could hear my 10-year-old, just praying in front of the whole crowd to God, saying just protect everybody. And she had a whole -- just kept climbing that mountain up into the jungles to run from the tidal wave.
They were -- they have just been really calm about it. They've been really helpful. We were in the kitchen washing dishes as a family, helping them just to repair their lives.
COOPER: Stephanie, I think what you're doing is amazing. Stephanie Sewell is staying in Thailand to try to help the people there rebuild their lives, rebuild the beaches.
Stephanie, thanks for joining us tonight.
360 next, when words fail, how do you describe the indescribable? When we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Tonight, take the ineffable to "The Nth Degree." Words fail, except perhaps the one that means exactly that: ineffable, incapable of being put into words. That's where we are in the middle a story that is beyond words.
Catastrophe, cataclysm and disaster are all worn thin, eroded with overuse. They ring false. No longer have the power to conjure up what they ought to conjure, the uncontrollable shivering of awe.
Maybe we shouldn't try at all. Even the Bible doesn't attempt, really, to describe the great flood. Genesis says this, "The waters surged and increased greatly on the Earth. All the high mountains under the whole sky were covered. Everything with the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils, everything on dry land died."
But then pictures also failed. There's no lens good enough, no screen wide enough to show more than a sliver, a tiny single sliver of this terrible story at a time. Really what image could capture, what word could describe a single day on which it's beginning to seem as many people died as did American soldiers during the entire 11 years of the Vietnam War?
In the end, ineffable may really be the very best that we can do.
I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for watching this special edition of 360. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next.
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