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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Saving Haiti; Dr. Sanjay Gupta Treats Injured Baby in Haiti; Rescuers Still Searching for Survivors in Haiti

Aired January 16, 2010 - 20:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our special coverage from Port-au-Prince, a broken city in Haiti, a crippled country full of people struggling to survive the disaster they've endured just days ago. Tuesday afternoon is when the nightmare began.

Near 5:00 o'clock, the earth started shaking, a magnitude 7 shockwave centered 10 miles from here, located close to the surface. It was the worst kind of quake in one of the poorest places on the earth. Even early on, the destruction was plain for everyone to see -- buildings collapsed, floor after floor literally pancaking down, roofs landing in basements, people buried inside, schools, churches, homes, hospitals destroyed.

With the airport control tower damage, the early aid shipments were delayed, American special forces turning this sleepy airstrip into one of the busiest on earth. Food, water, medical supplies are arriving, but getting them where they're needed is slow, it is difficult and it is frustrating. As many as 6,000 U.S. troops have now arrived. So has an army of rescue teams from all around the world.

But for the first several days of this disaster, it wasn't international rescue teams who were the heroes, it was the Haitian people themselves, the people of Port-au-Prince, who banded together, neighbors helping neighbors, family members digging through rubble, searching for their loved ones, sometimes complete strangers lending their hands, lending their sweat, lending their blood to try to get through the rubble to those who were still living.

And that's where we want to begin, one of the small victories we saw, an incredible moment the first day that we got here, the rescue of a girl named Bea (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): For many trapped in the rubble of downtown Port-au- Prince, the struggle to live continues.

(on camera): We've heard there may be somebody who's alive buried in there. The people on the street say there's a 15-year-old who's buried alive there and that they're talking. But we're going to go and try and see if that's the case and if there's anything we can do.

But the street -- I've never seen anything like this. Look at this. It is just -- it is just complete devastation. This is downtown Port- au-Prince, just a few blocks from the presidential palace, just about a block from the national cathedral, which itself is pretty much destroyed.

(voice-over): Atop a pile of rubble that used to be a building, we find a small group of men who've been digging here for more than five hours to rescue a teenage girl. Her feet are the only part of her still visible.

(on camera): (INAUDIBLE) 13-year-old girl (INAUDIBLE) Her name is Bea. She's clearly alive. We can hear her crying out. You can see two of her feet at this point, but (INAUDIBLE)

She's clearly in pain. They discovered her early this morning. It's now a little past 12:00 and they're still digging. It's not clear how they're going to get her out. They only have this one shovel. They don't have any heavy earth-moving equipment. They've got to be very careful about what they're moving. They're afraid if they move this big slab that seems to be on top of her that other stones, other pieces of cement could fall on her and crush her. So they're actually kind of arguing over what to do next, but (INAUDIBLE)

(voice-over): Bea's brother can do nothing. He just stands by, listening to his sister's cries. This man says his father is also trapped in the building but is already dead.

I don't have a father anymore, he cries. Gone. Had I been in the house, I wouldn't be here anymore either.

Worried more aftershocks may come and destroy the building even more, Bea's family and friends worked frantically. Finally, after being trapped for more than 18 hours, the men make a small hole and pull Bea out. She is alive. She is finally free.

(on camera): Did you think you would come out alive?

(voice-over): I felt that I would live, she says. I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared of anything. People were dying below me. I could hear them, but I wasn't scared. My heart didn't skip a beat. I heard them crying, she says. I heard an old lady crying, God, I'm dying, last night. I heard my aunt running and a big block fell on her.

Bea's aunt is dead. She and three others have been covered in cloths and laid out on the street. Bea's uncle wants me to see her face.

(on camera): This man has lost four family members. He just showed me his wife's body, which is under a shroud. And he's now worried about another family member who's an American, and he believes she is trapped inside that building, as well, and he's pretty sure she's dead.

(voice-over): There's no telling how long it will be before he knows for sure just how many people he has lost.

This is just one building. This is just one block. The suffering here has just begun.

(END VIDEOTAPE) Even though time is running out to find anyone alive, the people keep trying. Gary Tuchman has been all over this city. It's an extraordinary thing that we're witnessing.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's really awful. You know, when we landed Wednesday, the first thing we did was talk to the prime minister of Haiti, and he told us this is worse than we could possibly expect. And he was absolutely right. We spent hours going down the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince. Every street had its own horrifying story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

On Tuesday, this was a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince with apartment buildings. Now it's the worst devastation I've ever seen. This is worse than any horror movie you've ever seen. You can see here people looking for bodies of loved ones, loved ones who are missing. And as we were walking past, we see bodies that are under the rocks that are obviously lifeless.

But what is horrifying is on the other side of the street. They've tried their best to give people killed some respect by putting sheets on top of their bodies. But this street is covered with people who died in the earthquake and there's been nobody here to recover the bodies.

Perhaps, though, the most worrisome thing and the thing that concerns me the most and the thing that's upsetting the most is what's happening back here, and it's the search for possible survivors. There's not one rescue worker here, not one emergency worker, and most importantly, no equipment. People are digging by hand. One man says he heard noises, but there's no way to lift up these heavy rocks. There's no way to lift up this heavy concrete if there's someone who's trapped who's alive.

What's so scary and horrifying as we walk down the street is seeing children who walk by these bodies and look so frightened when they see the bodies. And one thing rescue workers here are telling us -- and the rescue workers are the civilians, like we say -- but they're looking for the flies and the insects.

You see the children as they're walking by. They're walking fast, their mothers shielding them, but they're looking anyway.

But what the people here are looking for are flies. They say when the flies fly over here, there may be survivors or human remains. You hear some excitement right here, but it's not because they've seen a body it's because of some argument going on about how to proceed with the search for people.

But the sight here, the smells here are just unbelievable. This is just a situation that you can never possibly imagine, that nobody should ever have to endure.

This is one of the most beautiful parts of Port-au-Prince and that's because this is where the presidential palace is. And this exemplifies this disaster. Look at what has happened to this beautiful building in the heart of downtown Port-au-Prince, destroyed from this earthquake. And the area surrounding here normally has a lot of tourists, a lot of Haitians, like Americans who come to the White House to look through the gates of the White House. But most of the people here are now temporarily homeless because most of the homes here in downtown Port-au-Prince have been destroyed.

And across the street, basically, it has become a camp site. Not only are people here because they no longer have homes, but people are very scared about the aftershocks and afraid if they do go in a structure that has just been damaged, that it can be destroyed. People don't want to go indoors, and that's why they're staying outdoors.

This is the third floor of a school. It's for small children during the day, continuing education for adults in the late afternoon and evening. Adults were in this classroom when the earthquake happened. You can see by just looking at the chairs and the handbags and the books how quickly people had to escape. The people inside this room survived, but the people in the other section of the school, just on this side, many of them did not. You can see the rubble, the open wall right here. And we see several bodies that are down there right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It is remarkable, what one sees out there and what the people here have to face every moment of the day. And after a while, you know, it kind of takes on a life of its own. I don't want to say it starts to seem normal but, you know, it seems to -- it becomes kind of just the way things are.

TUCHMAN: Yes, you know, we've seen so many bodies on the streets, and you start getting -- and it's so sad and horrifying -- but somehow used to it. One of the worst things I've seen since I've been here is the traffic was backed up. Our car wasn't moving for, like, 15 minutes. And the reason is there were so many bodies in the street that the traffic couldn't move, and everyone was trying to avoid running over the bodies. And it's just horrifying, the things we've seen since we've been here.

COOPER: Yes. It's the kind of thing no one should ever get used to and no one should ever think this is the way it should be. And as we've been saying, I mean, this is just -- this stupid death, at this point, you know, that people are dying who don't need to die. They're dying because they're not getting enough aid. They're not getting enough experienced personnel on the ground who can save their lives from simple things with antibiotics, which cost a few cents.

TUCHMAN: You know, I'm wondering if this country, and particularly the capital city, Port-au-Prince, can ever get back to the way it was before this past week.

COOPER: Yes, which was also a place of struggle even in the best of times.

TUCHMAN: Right. COOPER: When we come back, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at a local hospital. It's now fatally understaffed, underequipped, overflowing with people in need. That's next on this 360 special, "Saving Haiti."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It's heartbreaking. On a major street here in Port-au-Prince by the airport, there's four people just laying dead on the side of the road. Two of them have been covered in white sheets, as you can see. And two of them have just been covered with a cardboard box. One of them's a little -- a little girl.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

In the best of times, Haiti's medical system is woefully inadequate. After Tuesday's earthquake, clinics, hospitals that were still standing were overflowing with the injured, with the dead and the dying. Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta's visited hospitals where hundreds of people, many of them gravely injured, were waiting for hours, for days for help, and a lot of them died as they waited.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you're looking at is a makeshift mortuary in one of the few hospitals that's still up and running here in Port-au-Prince -- if you can call it that. Over the past few hours, we've seen dozens of bodies come out of this mortuary and taken to a truck, where they're taken to another ground, the bodies not even being identified.

So much of the attention is now focused over here, on patients who are alive but in desperate need of medical care. I want to try and walk through here, give you a very different perspective on what's happening in the aftermath of this natural disaster here in Haiti -- literally dozens of patients just lining the halls. Here you have patients on cardboard boxes, like this. They hardly have any resources, trying to care for patients like him. And when I say no resources, I mean no gauze, hardly any bandages and very few IVs. To get antibiotics, to get pain medication is a very difficult thing to do.

Lots of types of injuries here after an earthquake. You see a lot of crush injuries. You see penetrating injuries. You see this gal who we talked to earlier who has a broken leg, and they're literally using some Ace wrap and a wooden board to try and keep her leg stable. This is jungle medicine. It is primitive medicine, but it's medicine that can sometimes work, but hardly ever does.

You see, as well, more cardboard boxes over here. You see another splint, again using a wooden board, like that, to try and offer a little bit of stability. They're trying to take that off right now, trying to examine the leg. The man that's doing that is not a doctor, it's his friend. Let's keep walking through here. As we make our way out of the hospital, again, one of the few that are up and running, you can just see how busy this place is. This is where you want to be. This is an actual hospital. Out here is where things get even more challenging. This is where you have areas of makeshift tents, patients in these little cloth tents who were brought here because there's really nothing else that can be done for them. They have no resources at all to be able to take care of them, so the health care personnel bring these patients out here to try and get them out of the way so they can try to take of more patients in the hospital.

As we walk through here, you've probably never seen anything quite like this, stretchers under trees, IVs hanging from trees. That is what is necessary here. That is what is happening here in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince.

Outside on the streets, patients know about this place and they keep coming here. Just take a look at the long waiting line, people waiting to be seen. They're going to continue waiting for hours and days.

Even as I was telling you about the patients waiting outside, another truck pulls up. And as you can tell, this is the reality for a lot of people. These are two patients who are deceased. They were brought to the hospital as their loved ones simply looking for a place, something to do with their bodies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I want to talk to Sanjay in a moment. But you may be hearing singing. Behind me, there are several hundred people in a park behind me who've been sleeping there for several days. And every night, a lot of times, they sing, they pray to try to kind of rally their spirits and keep their hope and their faith alive. So that's is what you're hearing while we're talking.

Sanjay, you're at this hospital now. What's the situation? I mean, a bunch of international doctors arrived, but then they were told to leave by the U.N. because of security concerns.

GUPTA: That's exactly right. I've never been in a situation quite like this. It's quite ridiculous, in fact. There's lots of patients over here. Come over here, take a quick look. Just really, just as far as your eye can see, there's patients lined up out here in this outside tent, and then there's critically ill patients in this inside tent, as well.

You know, the doctors, I don't think they wanted to leave, but they were asked to leave, as you said, by the U.N. Anderson, you're not going to be able to see this, but I can tell you, if you just take a gander out here by the gate, an ambulance just pulled up now, three more patients who were critically ill. They don't know where to bring them. They were thinking that they would bring them here because they heard about these tents, patients who had traumatic amputations that were rescued just now from the rubble and they're trying to bring them in here, as well. Hardly any medical facilities. The nurses, the doctors have left. There's hardly any supplies left here, as well. You can see the situation that is unfolding here, Anderson. It's -- it's -- it's difficult.

COOPER: So I mean, people will die tonight. People could very easily die tonight who are there because they're not getting treated, right?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I'm trying to treat them, Anderson. It's an odd sort of thing, position that I'm in. But there is a patient here who has significant what's called necrosis, where parts of her leg had died as a result of crush injury. And I, without laboratories, am trying to assess what I think is best for her. There's another patient over here who had a significant injury resulting in amputation, and we're trying to take care of her, as well, literally trying to do the best that we can with what limited supplies they have left me. I have a stethoscope, and I'm monitoring these patients' vital signs the best that I can. But I'm looking for some help.

COOPER: I mean, it's ridiculous. The United Nations has troops here, I mean, hundreds -- thousands of troops here, and have for a long time. If -- I mean, they could -- they could have 10 troops there if they were so concerned about the security situation. To keep the -- to have the doctors leave, I mean, because of some theoretical risk, when you know for a fact people may die who are patients, that -- it just -- I find it stunning that they made that decision.

GUPTA: I try and explain things all the time. This one is inexplicable to me, frankly. And Anderson, let me show you, again, an ambulance now pulling in. They have nowhere to go. This is it, and frankly, I am it right now because there are no doctors or other nurses here. Trying to tell them that we are completely -- we're left in the lurch here. We really just don't have the supplies to take care of the patients. This is one of the most frustrating things I think I've ever been involved with. I feel really, really helpless. We're going to see what we can do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) take care (INAUDIBLE)

GUPTA: I know. I know. We have to figure this out and...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. But this gentleman needs to be done right away.

GUPTA: OK, let's take a look.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have two patients over there. You want to take a look at them?

GUPTA: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have two patients with legs.

GUPTA: OK, Anderson. We're going go to do this, Anderson.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) and there's a third one. GUPTA: Three patients with amputations?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) two of them have their legs...

GUPTA: Two with amputations?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... amputated and...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: All right, Sanjay, you've got your hands full there. We're going to let you go. Do what you can and -- just do what you can.

Our coverage continues in a moment. We'll be right back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. A look at your top stories right now. As you just saw on ANDERSON COOPER 360, some earthquake victims in Haiti watched their doctors and nurses walk right away last night after a Belgian medical team made the call to evacuate the field hospital over safety concerns. Originally, doctors at the site told CNN they were ordered to evacuate by the United Nations. But tonight, a coordinator from the Belgian team came forward to say he was the one who ordered his team to leave. He ordered his team to leave. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta stayed through the night and monitored the patients. The Belgian doctors returned this morning.

In the meantime, this is the kind of scene that played out in Port-au- Prince, where aid is pouring in from around the world but people are growing increasingly despondent. For some people, it is too late. Bodies can still be seen across Port-au-Prince, and mass graves have been dug in more remote areas outside of the city. There's still no official death toll.

A new sign that the world is paying close attention, though, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, spent several hours in Haiti today and met with the Haitian president.

Back in Washington, a show of unity from American presidents. President Obama has put former presidents Bush and Clinton in charge of the fund-raising effort.

It is down to the wire in Massachusetts in a Senate race there. President Obama heads there Monday to campaign for the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley. Polls suggest Republican Scott Brown is within striking distance. The special election is on Tuesday. This is the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. A Republican victory could give them enough votes to defeat the Democrats' plan -- health care reform plan. I'm Don Lemon. The Anderson Cooper special on the devastation in Haiti returns in just a moment. See you at 10:00 PM Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is (INAUDIBLE) I want to know -- to my father know I'm OK in Port-au-Prince. You know, I'm very lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm OK, Gopa!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There -- OK, many more are not. As many as 50,000 dead, according to the American Red Cross. But those numbers are just estimates. I mean, there are some people who are trapped underneath buildings that have completely pancaked on them. There's no telling how many people are in some of these buildings. Fifty thousand is about half a percent of Haiti's entire population. For perspective, imagine if in a single disaster, the same percentage of America's population was killed. It's equivalent to a quake in San Francisco killing everyone there and 14 million more.

It's a massive blow to a small country like this. It stares you in the face wherever you go. This week, we came across a family on the way to bury their loved ones. We asked them -- we asked to follow them to the cemetery. They said they wanted us to come. They wanted their story told. They wanted the world to know who their daughter was, who their sister was and what she meant to them.

But we do want to warn you this is tough to watch and some of the images are graphic. But at the same time, this is too important to ignore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It's become an all too common sight, a coffin wheeled down a Port-au-Prince street.

(on camera): This is a woman named Brigitte Jean Baptiste (ph). She was 28 years old. She was a journalist. She was actually teaching a class, they say, when the walls collapsed on her.

(voice-over): Brigitte's father, sister and brothers accompany the coffin, barely noticing the other bodies still laying in the road. Brigitte was pulled out of the rubble alive. They couldn't find a doctor to treat her.

She wasn't dead when we found her at 11:00, he says. She died at 1:00. She could have been saved, but we didn't find any help.

These are the only pictures they have of Brigitte, all they have to remember her by.

(on camera): Brigitte's family isn't even sure if there is a space in this cemetery for them to bury her, and they frankly don't have much money to pay for a space. They spent all the money that they could find on her casket. They wanted to bring her body here as quickly as possible to try to give her a decent burial. Now they're just going to try to negotiate whatever they can.

(voice-over): At the cemetery, they're told to wait. There are too many bodies still to be buried, too many families consumed by grief.

There are tons of dead people, this woman cries. Everyone in my house, my neighbors, are dead except me.

My friends, please help us, this man says. Isn't there anyone who can help us here? Help us. Help us. God is great. Help us to live.

Every few minutes, more bodies arrive.

(on camera): There's little dignity in death in Port-au-Prince these days. Some families are able to afford coffins, and you see plenty of those. But a lot of people are separated from their families, and so when they die, families don't even know they're dead. And no one knows what -- who these bodies are. They're just brought -- they're just brought to the cemetery, literally piled into mounds. There's probably about 20 or so people here, many of them small children.

Cemetery workers here saying that they're doing the best they can. They're trying to (INAUDIBLE) as many people as possible, but they're simply overwhelmed at this point.

(voice-over): Brigitte's family is finally told where they can place her casket. She'll be put in an old crypt that still has some empty space. It appears to belong to another family. There are no songs, no personal eulogies. There's little time and far too much confusion.

God in heaven, her father prays, we return to you this girl who's gone. In the name of the father, son and holy spirit, amen.

What God gives, her brother says, he takes away. A few concrete blocks were used to seal the crypt. That's one more of this city's dead now laid to rest. No marker, no flowers, Bridgette Jean Baptiste (ph) has been sealed in someone else's tomb.

(on camera) Well, as sad as that family's story is at least they do have a body to bury and they have a grave to visit. Tens of thousands of survivors will not. Their loved ones, for all intensive purposes, simply vanishing, hauled away to mass graves in random locations. The numbers are staggering. On Friday, Haiti's President says, government crews have buried 7,000 bodies in a 24 hour period. But how accurate those numbers are, there is no way for us to tell. And as we've seen, the grim work is far from done.

The fight to save a 15-year-old baby injured in the Earthquake. The newborn's father turned to Dr. Sanjay Gupta's help. We are going to show you what happens ahead on "Saving Haiti."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Aid is in the pipeline. The U.S. has pledge $100 million but, of course, it is not coming here fast enough for the Haitian people. People are still dying. That is why Larry King is devoting a special two-hour "Larry King Live" on Monday night from 8:00 to 10:00. Haiti, how you can help. Larry, joining to me now. We'll talk about that. Larry, what made you decide to do this?

LARRY KING, "LARRY KING LIVE" HOST: Well, Anderson, we were gathering together talking. And we decided, we can reach around the world to do what we can for the people of Haiti. We can report all we like. We can also do some incredible things, so we have lined up people Mick Jagger, Colin Powell and Seal, John Meyer, Ryan Seacrest, Tea Leoni and others. John (ph) is in direct of two hours Anderson. You, the viewers, we communicate, we Twitter, telephone, number of guests. If you want to help, it is a great way to do it. So, we ask everybody to join us as we honor our fellow man really by taking action on behalf of those in desperate need. Haiti, how you can help -- Anderson.

COOPER: Larry, it is a great thing you are doing. And I'm glad to be a part of it. "Larry King Live" special two hour edition. Haiti, how you can help from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday. Join us all for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Finding strength and faith the people you see singing a popular song in Haiti, roughly translated their saying, God will be with you through the tears. God will protect you. There have been so many incredible stories since the earthquake began, stories of heartbreak, stories of hope. One of the stories involves Dr. Sanjay Gupta who in the middle of his reporting was asked to help an injured newborn. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We are walking through the streets of Port-au-Prince right now. Get a real idea of what things are like. This is very little in the way of resources or little in the promise of help. Fifteen day-old baby. Some sort of head injury. They are begging for a doctor.

Hi I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER (via translator): Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

GUPTA: Can you tell me what happened? Specifically?

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER (via translator): The house collapsed. The mother died.

GUPTA: How has she been? Hi, sweetie. She is moving both of her arms. That's a good sign. She is moving both of her legs. Can you look through there and see if you have anymore gauze.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I have some big gauze I can cut it down.

(baby crying)

GUPTA: She has a pretty significant laceration here. What I need to make sure, she doesn't have a skull fracture underneath. The good news is I don't think she does. That is good. This is OK. No skull fracture underneath here. There is a big laceration underneath her skull. But she is moving all four extremities. Hi, sweetie. Hi, sweetie. Hi. How old is she?

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER (via translator): Fifteen days. She's going to need some antibiotics. We are going to need to redress this wound. Let's go ahead and do that -- piece of that gauze.

(INAUDIBLE)

GUPTA: So, this is what is happening out here on the streets of Port- au-Prince. A 15-day-old baby who was in the earthquake. Let me have you hold that for a second. So, she has no skull fracture. She does have a big laceration. She is going to need antibiotics but she does not appear to have a head injury. I think she is going to be OK. She's sucking her thumb. She's good. There you go. She should get some antibiotics. We'll try and find some if we can find some.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Block by block and often with their bare hands people continue to search for survivors. Ivan Watson was on the scene with one struggle to free a little girl. This is what he saw.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can hear her voice sometimes. An 11-year-old girl named Alyka (ph), she's pinned underneath this rubble. And the volunteers here are snaking through a hose right now to give her some drinking water. She is about ten feet away. And you can see the braids of this little girl's hair. I talked with her, she is wearing glasses and she is crying. She's in a lot of pain right now. And she terribly scared. This little girl, it is kind of hard breaking to hear this, because she is pinned there. Her right leg is underneath the concrete and her hands are free and her leg is free and she is talking to us.

They are trying to give her some drinking water right now. They have given her some food already. They only discovered her today, two days after the earthquake. They think there are several dozen other people trapped under the rubble probably did not survive. They are desperately trying to figure out how to get her out. They are thinking about trying to cut her leg. They have anesthetics, but they don't have blood to help her if they have to cut her leg off to get her out. So, they don't know what to do right now.

When they cut with this saw, she doesn't like it at all. It hurts a lot. They have put a little bible next to her. A pretty little girl, and, you know, she is a pretty little girl, she's got braids, she's got black reading glasses and a chipped front tooth. And we were talking to her and she is terribly scared right now and her mother is beside herself.

So, this is one case here. You know, we were on a neighboring hill top and there were two little French girls trapped under a building there. And only one French fireman working to try to help them out and he were passing them water. This is something that is probably replaying itself all across Port-au-Prince. And there are not just enough rescue workers to help. These guys, they say, if they could just get the right equipment they need they could perhaps lift some of this and get her out without cutting her leg.

They've pulled -- we don't want to really show that, they have pulled a piece of a dead body. This is very difficult. That was next to her. And they are trying to free out some area around this little girl and we understand that there are perhaps some 30 other relatives and neighbors who were trapped underneath the rubble. And this is just one house. We are seeing scenes like this all over the city.

COOPER: Ivan Watson joins us now. What is the update on that little girl?

WATSON: It is rather sad. She did not survive, unfortunately. What happened was the evening that we saw her, basically, she was cut free but did not make it through the first round of first aid and then delivery to some kind of a better hospital to treat her wounds which were pretty grave. Evidently, it seems that her right leg was quite crushed underneath. And she had bruises and cuts on her shoulders.

COOPER: There is really a hospital in Cap- Haitien where actually have rooms, have facilities but it is many hours away. I think, it takes, someone said, it takes like 16 hours this days to drive there. They couldn't make the trip.

WATSON: They were told to go to a hospital three hours' drive away. Now, these are relatives who couldn't even find a power saw for two days to cut this girl free and a small generator to run it. So, you can just imagine kind of logistical challenges here. What I think is what is most heartbreaking is on the day we were there, we had just come from a posh hotel, what had been a posh hotel where there were dozens and dozens of professional rescue workers from America, Chile and France working to save some other people and to dig out some other bodies from under the rubble. Nobody was around to help this little girl.

COOPER: Dozens of rescue workers at the wealthy hotels out on the streets where everyone else actually lives, it is a much more sketchy situation in terms of rescue personnel.

WATSON: It's just the ordinary Haitians did not have that kind of service. Whatever professional services were out there, they didn't have them. They had to make due with what they had and it wasn't enough to save this 11-year-old girl.

COOPER: And she has already been buried. You told me her mother doesn't know she is dead yet.

WATSON: She was buried Friday night. We heard that the little girl has been buried and the family is withholding information from the mother for fear she will not be able to handle the emotions of it.

COOPER: What was the last thing she said?

WATSON: The uncle, and we are getting all this information with a spotty line with the uncle, says that, "Because, she was so active on Thursday. She was talking. I mean, she grabbed hold of my hand and it is just very difficult to kind of explain this but anyway, she said, please don't let me die." And repeated that a few times, according to the uncle.

COOPER: Ivan, I appreciate your reporting. Thank you for being with us. Our coverage continues here, this "Saving Haiti," "360 Special" continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: In different parts of the city u.n. peacekeepers are trying to start to distribute food. They are trying to do it as orderly as possible. These are peacekeepers from Bolivia. They have lines of people here who have been waiting for some time now. And they are in small groups letting these people come through to trucks over here. The desperation for food and water grows so does the fear of disorder and things can turn very quickly. Things that are orderly one moment in a split second can turn into a riot. We haven't seen anything large scale at this point but that is a great concern. And already there have been some tense moments. Chris Lawrence, found out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Chris Lawrence, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in the back of a United Nations truck heading to the center of the city. You could see. We are jammed in tight with a lot of these supplies that the world food program is going to be delivering to the people of Haiti. You could take a look next to me, you could see some the u.n. guards. It is going to be their job to try to keep some form of order so things don't get out of hand.

The trucks now made it here to the park near the Presidential Palace. A lot of people starting to push and shove their way, trying to get up to where the food is. You can see a lot of the men pushing their way up. Haven't seen any of the women be able to get up here. It is swiftly getting a little chaotic here. They had to stop. They started blowing their whistles and had to stop about ten, 15 minutes ago. It just started back. But it seems to only just be able to last for about five minutes before it starts getting out of hand again. The thing that I noticed here too is like there is a lot of small kids in there that are getting jammed up against other people or they are just getting pushed out of the way entirely.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (speaking foreign language)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It is not good like that, OK. It's not good like that. Not good.

LAWRENCE: What is wrong with the biscuits? Why people don't want to eat?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It is a bad thing. LAWRENCE: What is happening is, they are confusing the date that it was packaged on which was 2008 with the expiration date which is November 2010. I know it is hard to say, but he is basically yelling and telling people, do not accept these biscuits because they are no good.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: They are very concerned. These biscuits are very good. They are OK.

LAWRENCE: But, you can see, everybody is following the truck. There they goes. They are trying to even just hold on to the back of it. But it is pulling away. A lot of people ended up with nothing. I don't know if we could still see they are running after the truck trying to get it. That truck is gone now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: This country has a history of basically a handful of thugs pushing other people around. In a situation like that, that often is what causes all the trouble.

LAWRENCE: That was so frustrating to see Anderson. I mean, when you see people who are stronger snatching food out of the hands of people who are weaker. It just frustrates you to no end. And the fact that these biscuits, these high-energy biscuits that the world food program was trying to hand out. It is good food, it doesn't expire until the end of the year. But because a couple of people yelled louder, shouted louder, intimidated other people, they got them to just throw it away. So, good food that could have gone to help people ended up on the ground.

COOPER: I mean, they were spreading false rumors that this food wasn't good.

LAWRENCE: Yes, but they spread them loudly and they shouted. And sometime, in a crowded situation like that is whoever shouts the loudest, that is going to get heard.

COOPER: Yes, one of this incredibly frustrating things. Let's hope in the coming days that, you know, there is security and there's order in all this food distribution, right. As we've seen, if there's not, just a fear of it can hamper the relief effort.

LAWRENCE: Yes, it really show, I mean, getting the food here to Haiti, that is one hurdle, getting it out to people in an orderly matter without people getting hurt or even worse, because when I talked to the rep from the World Food Program, he said a successful day today is if nobody gets killed.

COOPER: Right. Chris Lawrence. I appreciate it. Stay safe.

Still ahead, what comes next for Haiti's orphans who were awaiting adoption before the earthquake? Some of them now buried in the rubble. Food, water running out for them. A lot of them are sleeping outdoors in these orphanages. Their story next one this special edition of "360 Saving Haiti." (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Hundreds of people are sleeping in this park called the Central park in downtown Port-au-Prince. You see it in soccer fields, any place there is an open field, a little bit of shade, people with congregate. Hundreds of people have slept here overnight. Now, they are starting to wake up. Some of them have actually tents, some of them have a plastic shields, some people of course have nothing at all. We don't know yet how many children were orphaned in Tuesday's earthquake, but in 2007, there were already as many as 380,000 orphans in Haiti. Some of these kids were in the process of being adopted. But now, these orphans are facing even more difficult hurdles. We're talking to _ to check one of those orphanages.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Survivors of the Haiti earthquake. Twenty five little children who live in a Port- au-Prince orphanage that partially collapsed while they were inside. They already lost their parents and almost lost their lives. They were lucky to be in a part of a house that did not collapse. But, now they face dire challenges.

(on camera) There are fears the rest of this orphanage could collapse because of the frequent after shock we're having. So, the decision of them made is to leave these children outside 24 hours a day. They are playing outside, they are eating outside, they are sleeping in these mattresses outside. You could see, they are so well behaved, there is almost no crying whatsoever but there is also a very little smiling.

(voice-over) By Haiti's standards, this is an excellent orphanage, its run by two sisters from Pittsburgh, Jamie and Ally McMurtrie who had lived in Haiti for more than three years. They say, they love the children but can't even consider moving them back inside the house.

JAMIE MCMURTRIE, RUNS ONE OF HAITI'S ORPHANAGE: It is buckling and we can hear it. Like, it makes noises, like it is falling and rocks fall out of the side of it constantly, so we're certainly never going to go back in it.

TUCHMAN: Meanwhile, food and water supplies are running low. The few stores open strictly ration their supplies.

(on camera) Can you explain, you run an orphanage, you need food?

JAMIE MCMURTRIE: Right.

TUCHMAN: What do they say?

JAMIE MCMURTRIE: They don't care.

ALLY MCMURTRIE, RUNS ONE OF HAITI'S ORPHANAGE: Yes, sorry.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): And here is amazing and frustrating fact. All these children are in the process of being adopted by American families. In good times the process commonly takes a year and a half or more because of Haitian and u.s. Government bureaucracy, however for these children now --

JAMIE MCMURTRIE: They don't exist anymore.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Why is that?

JAMIE MCMURTRIE: Their paperwork was in government offices downtown and their offices are crumbled.

ALL MCMURTRIE: All crumbled.

JAMIE MCMURTRIE: So, there's -- that's what they need. All of those papers are what they need to be able to get a passport and a visa and go live somewhere else.

ALLY MCMURTRIE: The rest of the people, even the paperwork was there, we're hearing, the people who would do anything about it are under the rubble.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): These Pennsylvania sisters have dedicated their professional lives to helping orphans and now sadly realize, this country has so many more as of this week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: This coming Friday, January 22nd, MTV Network and CNN are teaming up for an earthquake relief global telethon, "Hope for Haiti," joining George Clooney, Wyclef Jean for commercial free two hours, music and live news report. All proceeds will be split among five relief organizations operating in Haiti. Friday January 2nd, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I hope you will watch and help. We are going to be here all week reporting what we see, what everyone who can help really needs to see. For all of us at 360 and CNN, good night from Haiti.