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Huge Explosion Rocks Beirut; Stimulus Talks Break Down on Capitol Hill; Riders Gather in South Dakota for 80th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally; Georgia School District Quarantines 260 Students and Eight Teachers after First Week of School; Air India Plane Crashes in Kerala after Skidding Off Runway; Mexico Now Has Third Highest Global COVID-19 Death Toll; U.S. Treasury Department Sanctions Hong Kong Officials; Trump Issues Orders Banning TikTok and WeChat. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired August 08, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): The explosion and then the anger: protests are expected in the Lebanese capital today and U.S. president Donald Trump pledges millions in aid.
Plus, hundreds of thousands of bikers and onlookers are set to descend on a South Dakota town. Why many of them are saying no to wearing masks.
And it's back to school but maybe not back to work. How the pandemic is pushing some parents out of the workforce.
Live from CNN World Headquarters, welcome to you, our viewers here in the United States and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber.
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BRUNHUBER: Outrage is growing among the people of Lebanon following Tuesday's horrific explosion in Beirut that killed more than 150 people. Another anti-government protest is expected in the coming hours.
Emergency crews are combing through the rubble, searching for possible survivors, as a massive cleanup of the port begins. And it could be months before it's operational again. We now have photographs of the ammonium nitrate thought to cause the devastation; 3,000 tons have been sitting in a port warehouse for years after being confiscated from a Russian cargo ship.
The U.S. has pledged $50 million worth of assistance. President Trump tweeted this on Friday.
"At 3:00 pm this afternoon spoke to President Aoun of Lebanon to inform him that three large aircraft are on the way loaded up with medical supplies, food and water, also first responders, doctors and nurses on the way. We will be having a conference call with President Macron, leader from Lebanon and leaders of the other parts of the world. Everyone wants to help."
Several high-ranking customs and port officials reportedly have been detained as part of the official probe but Lebanon has a disturbing history of investigating tragic accidents without any results or accountability. And the country's president already has rejected demands for an international inquiry.
Let's bring in CNN's Sam Kiley from Beirut.
Among the people I've spoken to so far, there's very little confidence that the guilty will face arrest.
What's the latest on arrests?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: On the investigation, Kim, the government says they don't favor an international independent investigation. But interestingly, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah -- Hezbollah is an organization identified by the United States and many other nations as a terrorist organization. It's also part of the government structure here through its political wing -- he has said that he would support an independent investigation conducted by the Lebanese army, which is somewhat surprising.
But he's doing so, really, because there had been suspicion that the port behind me had some kind of covert role or relationship with Hezbollah, which he's been extremely anxious and loud in denying.
Simultaneously, President Michel Aoun is from a completely different part of the Lebanese sectarian spectrum, has repeatedly suggested that there may have been some kind of what he calls external interference or influence in igniting the devastating explosion that has been so tragic for Beirut.
But international experts we've spoken to say that the ammonium nitrate could not have been ignited, except, in a sense, by fluke, because of the very close proximity between it and what appears to have been a weapons dump or, more likely, a fireworks cache that had been burning for a period of time before the enormous explosion that flattened so much of Beirut.
Now the landscape behind me is exactly ground zero, if you like, of the explosion. Those are grain silos behind me. And the yellow in front of them is wheat. I don't know if you can see but just below it is actually where Warehouse 12 used to be. That is now sea because an area the size of a football pit was blown into the air and has been actually claimed by the Mediterranean ocean as a consequence.
A big chunk of the port has been blown up. Now port officials and customs officials are among those who have reportedly been detained.
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KILEY: Among those detained was the former head -- or the current head of Lebanese customs and his predecessor, both of whom have seen the documents and got in touch and actually asked for judicial review and judicial decision to force the movement of this 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate out because of the potential danger that it posed.
The courts kicked that back to the government and nothing was done. For that reason, the Lebanese population here in Beirut are angry. And later today, there's going to be a large demonstration. As you know, Kim, there have been demonstrations against this profit, against the whole Lebanese classes. They've been going since fall last year, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: It's really powerful to see that devastation there. Thank you, Sam Kiley in Beirut. We appreciate it.
These are still critical hours for rescue teams as they race to find anyone still trapped. Crews are working to clear away debris and secure dangerous areas so rescuers can operate safely. CNN's Arwa Damon was on the scene near that blast site.
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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What they are doing right now is looking out for potential structural damage. So things that could fall down. Right, now eyeballing that balcony up there. The last thing anyone wants to see happen is even more people getting hurt.
What they are trying to do is, safely, get rid of any sort of potentially hazardous situation. They do have other teams throughout the entire destroyed areas and down at the port, who are conducting similar operations. They are also conducting search and rescue operations.
The colonel was telling the media that, based on their experience in Haiti and other experiences, you can still, depending on the circumstance, potentially find survivors up to 72 hours later. If not, in some cases, even longer.
So they still have hope that they will be able to find some people. They started working at 8:00 am on Thursday. That is when the teams first arrived in the country. On Thursday, they were able to find the corpses of four. Obviously, those who still have missing loved ones are hoping that loved one is still alive.
They are taking the coordinates of this location so that other teams can then come through once again. As these French crews have been going through, a lot of people are coming up and thanking them.
The Lebanese population has really felt, especially after this explosion, that they have been completely and utterly abandoned and betrayed by their own government. But now people will tell you, at the very least, they don't feel entirely alone -- Arwa Damon, CNN, Beirut.
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BRUNHUBER: I spoke to a Lebanese politician about the frustration and anger that many in Lebanon feel toward their government. She said she's so disgusted, she feels compelled to resign as a member of parliament.
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PAULA YACOUBIAN, FORMER LEBANESE MP: And here in Beirut, I took the position of resigning because I feel I'm a false witness in this parliament. There's nothing we can do. The decision making is outside of the parliament.
You have five or six leaders that decide everything. It's like going to a circus. I decided to resign after the explosion. I started talking to some MPs. They told me, let's wait and do it together. I'm still trying to talk to as many MPs as possible and urge them to resign.
And I urge the Lebanese people to call their representative and ask them to resign. Everyone should resign from this system, from this -- I don't know what to call it. It's a mafia system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: So to cover more on this growing anger, we're going to speak now to Bel Trew, a Middle East correspondent with "The Independent" and she joins me now from the naval base near the port in the center of the Beirut.
Can you just give us a sense of where you are and what's happening there?
BEL TREW, "THE INDEPENDENT": Absolutely, I'm at the naval port. Behind me is a destroyed silo, the epicenter of the blast that shook Beirut and destroyed so much of the city on Tuesday. At the moment, we're here with the army, they are giving a tour of the blast site.
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TREW: And they're still working on the blast site to try and find out if there's any survivors or any bodies to remove. So it's quite busy here in the blast site area and the military still trying to hope to find to survivors.
BRUNHUBER: Now as we heard from our last guest there, there's been such visceral anger, people yelling at ministers in the street to resign.
You've been covering this; what have you seen?
TREW: The most resounding sentiment I've felt with everyone I've spoken to, people who've lost their homes or looking for their missing loved ones or trying to help with the cleanup operation, is one of anger.
Not just at the government but actually for the lack of response in the aftermath. So one of the things you're noticing on the streets is the lack of government officials, the lack of response. It's really individuals helping individuals.
it's organizations, (INAUDIBLE) initiatives, activists, just random people out with brooms and shovels doing the cleanup, housing people who've lost their homes, trying to find the missing, putting together lists of which houses have been destroyed, what kind of restoration efforts they need.
It's all coming from the people, not from the government. That's why they're so angry. They feel like, how did the government not know that that ammonium nitrate was in the port area which is so residential?
And why are they not doing anything to help people now?
BRUNHUBER: And you've got an interview with the country's economy minister.
Does he understand the anger? Does he get it?
TREW: He said he did understand the anger but that the government in power right now has only been in power for six months and they couldn't undo decades of mismanagement. That was a direct quote from him.
He said that the country is on its knees. This is the toughest challenge Lebanon has ever face, even tougher than the 15-year civil war. And they need international aid to come in and fix the country because they cannot afford to do it on their own.
He did acknowledge there was anger, but he was sort of deflecting blame, saying he's only been in the job for a few months, how could he possibly fix all of these problems in just a short period of time?
BRUNHUBER: All right. He spoke about dire need. But what do you make of the calls that the country should bypass entirely the government with their donations, so aid is not siphoned off by corrupt officials?
TREW: This is one of the major fears from the people here, if you have all the aid coming in, it's only just going to line the pockets of the very people responsible for this incident.
Some international politicians, including French president Emmanuel Macron, have said they will not send aid to corrupt towns. They will do it directly to the people in need. And that's (INAUDIBLE) repeated again and again, which is why the protests are happening this afternoon. They are saying they don't want the government to handle it because they don't trust them and they want the international community to come and bring money to the country, to the people in need, not to the politicians.
BRUNHUBER: You speak of the protesters; the opponents of the government often refer to the government as the mafia. The question is, you know, it's such a sectarian country, as you know.
Will the government actually lose the support of the loyalists that have basically kept it in power?
Or can it still count on enough support to kind of ride out this latest crisis?
TREW: Well, I think it's too early in the day to say where it's going to go. It depends how large the protests are. It depends also on the international community.
Is the international community going to really hold this government to account?
I think it also depends on the investigation. What we heard from the Lebanese president himself, is he knew there were explosives being stored in this port. But he had made an order to dispose of it and nothing had happened.
But right at the very, very top of this command chain, they had word that there was danger in the port. As this investigation comes through, you might find that quite a lot of the current government, those in power for many, many years, might held to account, which also makes a big difference.
But for the moment, those loyal to the authorities are sticking with them. Meanwhile, the citizens themselves are expressing a huge amount of anger.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks and months, thank you for your analysis and that unique viewpoint from the port. We appreciate it very much.
That's Bel Trew reporting from Beirut.
Coronavirus cases, our other top story, rising across much of the U.S. but that's not stopping thousands of bikers from gathering in South Dakota for an annual motorcycle festival.
Plus, parents in the U.S. are forced to put their careers on hold because their children will be learning from home. Coming up, how it's affecting two moms. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. politicians are heading into another weekend without a deal on the next package for coronavirus relief. Talks between Democrats and Republicans stalled Friday, with President Trump laying out potential executive actions if Congress doesn't reach an agreement.
Friday, Mr. Trump, again, blamed Democrats for the stalemate. He said his executive orders would include a payroll tax deferment and extend unemployment benefits. But Congress controls the company's finances.
So, well, can he legally do it?
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) QUESTION: Are you concerned about the legality of these executive orders?
TRUMP: Not at all. No. Somebody -- well, you always get sued. I mean, everything you do, you get sued. I was sued on the travel ban and we won. I was sued on a lot of things and we won. So we'll see. Yes, probably, we get sued. But people feel that we can do it.
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Those talks are ending but the virus is not letting up. The U.S. has nearly 5 million cases. With the 80th annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, it's going ahead. Residents fear it and analysts think of it as a super spreader event and those say they know the risk but don't care. Here's CNN's Ryan Young.
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RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Any other year and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is a novelty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything is cool. You guys should come out.
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YOUNG: A pilgrimage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We came 2,000 miles to work.
YOUNG: A celebration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just the happiest people in the world.
YOUNG: But this year, some fear it could be deadly, 250,000 people expected to crowd a town of 7,000, making it the largest public gathering since the start of the pandemic.
LAURA ARMSTRONG, PRESIDENT, RAPID CITY COMMON COUNCIL: They're not going to be able to handle any kind of social distancing. There is a significant amount of alcohol involved. It's a huge party.
YOUNG: Total coronavirus cases are low but rising in South Dakota. The state's testing positivity rate is between 8 percent and 9 percent.
The WHO recommends locations at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days before opening but South Dakota never closed so the rally isn't breaking any laws.
ROD WOODRUFF, OWNER, BUFFALO CHIP CAMPGROUND: I always look up here as being false evidence appearing real and I think that's what has happened.
YOUNG: Rod Woodruff owns the Buffalo Chip Campground with 600 acres. He says there's plenty of room for social distancing and common sense.
WOODRUFF: Ride free, take risks. That's our motto, right?
That doesn't mean you don't calculate them. These people calculate their risk every time they get on a motorcycle.
YOUNG: A city survey of Sturgis residents found 60 percent wanted the rally cancelled at this time but city leaders say bikers were coming anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care if it's closed down. I'm going. They can all kiss my (INAUDIBLE), I'm going.
YOUNG: So the city council allowed it with fewer official events but no mask requirement. For those afraid to leave home, the city will deliver supplies.
MAYOR MARK CARSTENSEN (R-SD), STURGIS: We've been doing that the entire time. We're actually expanding the program during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. They include anything that can be bought in Sturgis basically.
GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Our economy benefits when people come and visit us.
YOUNG: South Dakota's Republican Governor Kristi Noem welcomes the crowd and says events like the Independence Day celebration out in Mount Rushmore proved the state isn't drastically affected by large gatherings.
NOEM: So we know we can have these events and give people information, let them protect their health but still enjoy their way of life.
YOUNG: That's what vendors like Ted Smith want to hear. He came all the way from Florida.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't do work in Florida. It's no shows. It's no bike shows. They've all cancelled them out.
YOUNG: But others worry that 250,000 people crowding bars and restaurants could spread the virus and sent it home to others.
ARMSTRONG: They can infect our Native American populations, our law enforcement and potentially our bar staff.
YOUNG: And the people we talked to said they believe the mask requirements are just political nonsense and they plan to not wear them throughout the weekend. They plan to social distance because there's a lot of space out here and they feel they're going to be safe -- Ryan Young, CNN, Sturgis, South Dakota.
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BRUNHUBER: Well, it's the issue on the mind of almost every parent in the U.S., children returning to school. Now the nation's largest school district has outlined its plan for the fall semester. New York City will offer hybrid learning, where both in-person and
remote learning options will be available. Some will have various safety precautions like thermometers, hand sanitizer and more cleanings. Testing will be required for staff and be available for students and their families. There's also a plan for the worst case scenario.
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MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: I want to hold New York City Schools to a very tough standard. And that is that 3 percent standard over a seven-day period. If our average goes above 3 percent infection, in New York City, we would not open schools if it happens during the school year. We would close them.
But with 1.1 million school kids and three-quarters of our families who've said they want their kids back in school, they want that support. They want their kids to do better educationally, then they can do it remotely.
They want everything that goes with school, the social development, the mental health services, physical health services, food, to honor our obligations to do our very best for parents and families.
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BRUNHUBER: Obviously not all schools can offer a hybrid model. More than half of the 100 U.S.' largest school districts will be starting online. This means more than 7 million students will be learning virtually so many parents are having to put their jobs on hold to stay home. CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports.
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SARAH PARRA, TEACHER: It didn't really make sense for me to go to work and pay somebody else to be home with my own kids.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the first time in four years, Sarah Parra won't be able to meet her new class of preschool students when the school year begins at Smyrna First Baptist school just outside of Atlanta.
PARRA: I'm constantly thinking about my students and what they need. So it's going to be hard.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Instead, she'll be teaching and taking care of her own young children.
When the Cobb County School District announced that the school year will begin online, Parra was forced to rethink her working life.
PARRA: We have always organized our finances to where we could live off of one salary.
[05:25:00] GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Pre-COVID, women made up half of the U.S. workforce. But as noted in a recent report from Goldman Sachs, that participation rate is directly tied to accessible childcare.
With millions of children starting the school year virtually, coupled with fewer daycare options, an enormous number of Americans are now forced to come up with childcare solutions before they can return to work.
PARRA: When I'm home, I'm a wife and I'm a mother. And I feel like it's -- a teacher is just another part of my identity. And that's really what's going to be missing.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): It turns out, many of those solutions involve working moms putting their careers on hold.
JOSEPH ALLEN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT SCIENCE, HARVARD: There are enormous societal and individual costs to school closures that are not being discussed. It has to be a absolute priority to get kids back to school for their own good and also to get the economy re-going.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Piedad Sanchez had to leave the cleaning company she worked for in order to take care of her three children ranging in age from eight to 11.
PIEDAD SANCHEZ, WORKING MOM: I had to quit because at this time, for me, my kids are more important. We're more tight with the money.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Sanchez is also investing her time within her own community, helping families navigate language barriers to online learning, which is disproportionately set back Hispanic students.
SANCHEZ: They may be don't understand the language, but I help them.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): As Congress continues to debate another stimulus bill, the school and childcare crisis is one of the few areas that has bipartisan support. For moms like Piedad and Sarah, it's too late.
SANCHEZ: There is no option, because I have to maybe ask somebody come to watch them but there is not an option for me.
PARRA: They can't hold my place for me for when school goes back, which makes it a little unsettling not having an end date for all of this.
GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Bianna Golodryga, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: That's such a tough situation for so many people.
After the break, we've got the latest from Beirut, including the story of a married couple whose apartment overlooked the port. The blast knocked them out cold and could have killed them but they're among the survivors. We'll have more after the break.
Plus, new developments in the deadly Air India crash as officials recover the plane's flight data recorder.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to you, our viewers in the United States and around the world.
Many Lebanese are expected to hold an anti-government rally in a matter of hours in Beirut's Martyrs Square. Chronic corruption and a worsening economy have provoked a public backlash since last October.
But anger over Tuesday's widespread devastation in the capital now threatens to boil over. Detentions of the country's top customs official won't quiet a population fed up with the status quo. Lebanon's ambassador to the U.K. spoke earlier with CNN's Hala Gorani about the growing frustration.
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RAMI MORTADA, LEBANESE AMBASSADOR TO THE U.K.: The only way I know of, the only democratic way to help with the political class is through elections. We had the elections back in 2018 which was internationally recognized.
And the same political class people are complaining of they have been elected, that no one contested these elections. But now we have the elections in two years' time, less than two years.
I think the protesters and the civil society and whomever (sic) who is not happy with the policies followed should start reverting (ph) themselves and use these elections as a platform to inflict (sic) change in the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: But given the bloodshed and destruction this week, it's not clear how patient the Lebanese people will be for that change. Hospitals in Lebanon's capital already were struggling with coronavirus when the blast rocked the city and waves of wounded people began streaming in. Our Ben Wedeman takes us inside.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like any anxious father about to be, Edmund Hanesa (ph) wanted to capture every moment.
But not this. All the horror of Tuesday's explosion converged on Beirut's hospitals. Overwhelmed by thousands of wounded, many of the injured had to be treated outside.
Rula Altani was the supervising nurse that night at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, who received about 200 wounded.
RULA ALTANI, SUPERVISING NURSE, RAFIK HARRIRI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Usually in the disaster, it was the longer, you know, it's two hours, maybe. Rush hours, you work hardly. It never ends. This night was about 7:30 and it's 2:53 in the morning and I'm always working.
WEDEMAN: As he scrambled from one patient to another, Dr. Jihads Bulqaie (ph) was torn between duty and family.
"They were waiting to hear from me and me from them," he recalls.
"Here I was busy treating the wounded. It was painful."
The memories of that night remain vivid.
MUSTAFA KHALIFA, NURSE, ICRS: Usually a disaster you could manage, because your adrenaline level is so high, you will not sit. But whenever you stop, you will fall apart.
WEDEMAN: This is the main hospital treating COVID-19 patients in Beirut. With Lebanon in economic freefall and new coronavirus cases hitting record highs, Tuesday's blast brought home just how dire are Lebanon's prospects. Yet the hospital's director general insists his staff must remain focused in their calling.
DR. FIRASS ABIADD, GENERAL MANAGER, RAFIK HARIRI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: It's clear that we are, if not at the breaking point, very much near it. But somehow when you are staring into the abyss, you don't think about that. All of your concentration is, I need to do more and more and more.
WEDEMAN: The explosion severely damaged many of the city's hospitals, forcing them to send patients to other facilities in Beirut and outside the capital.
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WEDEMAN (voice-over): One postscript: Edmund (ph) and his wife, Manuela (ph), now have a baby, George (ph). He is well -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Now among the thousands of people injured in Beirut, are a husband and wife who lived just a few hundred meters from the blast site. Both suffered terrible injuries. But this is incredible, they are alive. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has their incredible story.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): It began with what sounded like fireworks. From their balcony, husband and wife Lina Alami (ph) and Ahmad Khalil (ph), could see a fire growing in the Beirut port. Less than 600 meters away, the couple livestreamed from their
apartment, as the flames and smoke grew thicker.
Then, a second blast. Lina (ph) says that she only remembers flying through the air; both were knocked unconscious.
When Lina (ph) woke up, she saw her home destroyed and her husband bleeding profusely. The couple now lay together in a local hospital room, recovering from severe injuries that required hours of surgery to treat.
This video shows the catastrophic destruction to their apartment, every window with glass blown out. The once gleaming kitchen and bedrooms are now filled with debris and bloodstains. Lina (ph) tried to drag her husband out, before finally getting help to bring him down 10 flights of stairs, using a door as a stretcher.
They are now among the 300,000 people, half of the city's population, made homeless by the devastating blast -- Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: If you'd like to help the victims of Tuesday's blast in Beirut, it's quite easy, just log on to our "Impact Your World" Web page. It's cnn.com/impact. Again, the address, cnn.com/impact.
Still to come, the horrifying extent of Friday's deadly Air India crash. The latest on the investigation just ahead.
Plus, a week of sad and troubling milestones in the pandemic across the globe. We'll have the details coming up, just ahead.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Well, what you're seeing now, these are new pictures showing the extent of Friday's horrific Air India plane crash. Authorities say they've just recovered the plane's flight data recorder.
At least 18 people were killed, including four children, and dozens more were injured in Friday's accident.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: It happened as the plane was landing in a rainstorm in an airport in southern India. It was carrying almost 200 Indian citizens from Dubai, who had been stranded because of coronavirus. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): A scene of chaos in India's southern Kerala state, where a passenger plane has broken in two. On board the destroyed aircraft, 190 passengers, including 10 infants, two pilots and four cabin crew.
Not all survived. Dozens more are injured. The passengers were Indian nationals stranded abroad by the coronavirus pandemic being repatriated by the Indian government. They returned home on an Air India Express flight IX-1344, ended in a crash landing.
After departing the Dubai (ph) route, to the Kozhikode International Airport, upon arrival, it skidded off the tabletop runway in heavy rainfall. Its fuselage shearing apart and falling into the valley 9 meters below.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pilot had tried to land earlier and then did a turnaround. The aircraft would not be brought to a halt by the end of the runway. And there is 35 feet drop in a gorge. Fortunately, the plane did not catch fire.
SUD (voice-over): The prime minister says in a tweet, he is pained by the accident, offering condolences and assistance, to those affected. As of now, there are few answers about what exactly happened in the crash landing.
It appears weather could have played a role. The crash landing comes during a heavy monsoon season, which has led to deadly landslides elsewhere in Kerala state.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Runway construction, runway pavement is a very exacting science. You have to have it scored and marked in such a way so that you will get traction when you touch down in rain. Of course, we don't know at this point where the plane actually touched down on the runway.
SUD (voice-over): In May of 2010, an Air India Express flight overshot an airport runway in the country's southwestern city of Mangalore (ph). It killed all 158 people on board. Now 10 years, later Friday's crash in Kerala marks a similar tragedy with many unanswered questions -- Vedika Sud, CNN, New Delhi.
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BRUNHUBER: Italy is extending coronavirus safety measures, despite the country's relatively low infection rates. The government plans to continue rules on masks, social distancing and the ban on gatherings until September 7th.
Officials also announced a new plan on Friday for businesses; 25 billion euros have been set aside to help support the economy.
Well, it's been a sobering week of coronavirus crisis records for many countries. CNN looks at those reaching their own milestones and the misery the virus is bringing. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the 33 countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean are now collectively reporting more than 5 million confirmed cases of this virus.
SUD: India has surpassed 200 million confirmed cases of COVID-19.
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are now more than a million confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A week of death, loss and pain, around the world. The numbers just keep going up. This week, the global death toll crossed 700,000, a miserable statistic, felt by grieving families around the world.
Each funeral, like this one in Sao Paulo, a reminder that, behind every number is a name. The losses in Brazil, staggering, hovering around 100,000.
Similar scenes in Mexico, where more than 50,000 people have now died from the virus. One man says it has devastated his entire household.
"I've had 10 sick family members," he says. "My mother, may she rest in peace, was the first victim in our family from this pandemic."
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HOLMES (voice-over): In Peru, some people say they cannot bury the dead because the cemeteries are full. The country's death toll rose to more than 20,000 this week. Health care workers say their hospitals are overwhelmed.
"We are overcrowded," one doctor says. "We have no staff, no nurses, no medication, no PPE, no oxygen. What do we do?"
Some African countries also showing signs of strain after the continent surpassed 1 million cases. Some funeral homes in South Africa say they need to expand to make more space for the dead.
PASEKA LEGAE, FUNERAL LOGISTICS OFFICER: We had to get container fridge, because just couldn't take the influx of people that came in.
HOLMES (voice-over): In India, millions of health care workers went on a two-day strike, as the country reached 2 million cases. The strikers say at least 100 colleagues have died from the virus and that they need higher pay and better protective equipment.
Across Europe, a number of countries seeing an upward trend in cases, raising fears of a second wave. Germany saw more than 1,000 new infections in a single day this week and will begin testing people arriving from high-risk areas.
And in the United States, which has, by far, the highest COVID-19 death toll in the world, a 7-year-old boy added to that number as another week ends with losses beyond measure. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: And you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Still to come, TikTok won't go without a fight. Find out how the video sharing app is pushing back after the U.S. president's move to ban it.
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BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, and 10 other officials. The White House says it's in response to the role she and other city leaders have played at cracking down on political reforms.
The action comes weeks after China imposed a controversial national security law in the city. CNN's Ivan Watson has more from Hong Kong.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. Department of Treasury has announced sanctions against 11 top government officials here in Hong Kong, accusing them of undermining this former British colony's system of autonomy and democratic freedoms.
And the top target is the city's top official, Carrie Lam, the chief executive here. Other targets include the secretaries of justice and security, the current and former police chief, several officials appointed directly by the Chinese central government in charge of the Hong Kong liaison office, in charge of a newly established national security directorate here.
All of these individuals, any of their assets or property in U.S. jurisdictions will now be immediately seized by the U.S. government, which is the latest salvo against Hong Kong since Beijing quickly drafted and then imposed a controversial national security law on the city which critics, both here in Hong Kong and around the world, argue, demolishes a system of autonomy that the city was supposed to enjoy.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the Trump administration announced that it would no longer recognize a special trading status that Hong Kong had enjoyed, unlike the rest of Mainland China.
Now the Chinese central government bristles at this criticism. It calls it an infringement on China and Hong Kong's internal affairs. And this is just part of a much larger confrontation currently underway, where the Trump administration has been bashing different parts of China and Chinese government officials on a number of human rights issues.
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BRUNHUBER: And the Hong Kong government in the past few hours lashed out at the sanctions. It's calling them, quote, "shameless and despicable."
Now TikTok is threatening legal action over U.S. president Donald Trump's move to ban it. He signed an executive order that would block the app from operating in the U.S. in 45 days unless its Chinese owner sells it.
The order targets WeChat as well. Beijing says the U.S. is using state power to oppress non-American businesses. Let's bring in CNN's Selena Wang, standing by live in Hong Kong for us.
It seems like a bad game of tennis between China and the U.S. and now the tennis ball itself is fighting back. TikTok, obviously the ball in this scenario. This metaphor made a lot more sense in my head but, hopefully, you understand what I mean here.
What is the latest in this battle?
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SELENA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kim, I totally got your metaphor. And when it comes to TikTok, they are putting in their strongest statement yet, saying they're shocked by the Trump administration's executive order and even threatened to sue the administration.
In a statement, the company said that it tried to engage with the U.S. government in good faith but it found that the administration, quote, "paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses."
Now this executive order certainly adds urgency for Microsoft to complete this acquisition of TikTok. But this deadline doesn't give these two companies a lot of time to sort out a technically very complex deal.
Now these latest moves from Trump are clearly part of a broader campaign on his administration for deeper economic decoupling between the two countries.
Just days before, secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced this clean network program, which would essentially purge Chinese technology from the United States in the form of apps, cloud services as well as mobile networking services. But when it comes to this idea of the splinternet, of these two separate Internets, well, that, Kim, has already been underway for many years since U.S. social media apps have been banned in China for many years.
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WANG: But if the U.S. follows in the footsteps of China, walling off its Internet, we could see a much deeper rupture in the global Internet. BRUNHUBER: So the focus here in the U.S. is on TikTok.
But how significant would the WeChat ban be on people and companies in the U.S.?
WANG: Now the way that the ban is written on WeChat, it does leave a lot of room for interpretation. But if it goes through with the outright ban, it would be cutting off a massive link between the United States and China.
Overseas, WeChat hasn't had nearly the amount of success that TikTok has. But it is a critical means for people to communicate with family and friends in China, not to mention it's key for U.S. businesses in China in terms of marketing, advertising and reaching the Chinese consumer.
And just for a bit of context here, when I'm in China, WeChat is my lifeline. It's critical for all ways of daily life. It's not just a messaging and payments app. It's basically like Facebook, WhatsApp, Venmo, Uber Eats and much more all rolled into one app.
More than 1 billion people use it in China so it's incredibly important. And if this ban goes in place, it's another major escalation on the part of the Trump administration against China.
BRUNHUBER: So many repercussions here. Thank you, Selina Wang in Hong Kong. Appreciate it.
Well, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. For U.S. viewers and Canadian viewers, "NEW DAY" is just ahead. For the rest of the world, it's "Tech for Good." Please stay with us.
