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Deadly Crush At Houston Music Festival; U.S. President And Cabinet To Launch Infrastructure Tour; Ethiopian Military Calling On Veterans To Rejoin Armed Forces; Sierra Leone Fuel Tanker Blast Kills At Least 98; Latin America Drought; Remembering Marilia Mendonca. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired November 07, 2021 - 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 ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber this is CNN NEWSROOM. Just ahead --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It wasn't really -- I'm going to die. I need to breathe.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Astroworld Festival attendees describe the terror that unfolded during Travis Scott's performance. What the singer has to say about the tragedy. We'll bring you that.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): U.S. President Joe Biden just needs to sign off on his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. We'll explain when he's planning to do that and what's next for the president.
Plus, at least 98 people are dead after a fuel tanker exploded in Sierra Leone. We're live in Freetown.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live, from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: Terrifying accounts of concertgoers fighting for their lives are emerging from Friday's deadly crowd surge in Houston, Texas. And we're hearing from the artist who's at the center of it all.
At least eight people were killed and scores of others injured when the massive crowd rushed the stage at the Astroworld Festival. The victims are all under 30 years old. One witness says "all hell broke loose" when rapper Travis Scott took the stage, with people literally being crushed by the surging crowd.
This is the message to them Scott posted on social media a short time ago.
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TRAVIS SCOTT, RAPPER: I just want to send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night, we're actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.
You know my fans, my fans, like -- my fans really mean the world to me. And I'll always just really want to leave them with a positive experience. Anytime I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know, I'd stop the show and, you know, help them get the help they need, you know?
I could just never imagine the severity of the situation. We have been working closely with -- we have been working closely with everyone to just try to get to the bottom of this, the City of Houston, HPD, fire department, you know, everyone to help us figure this out.
So if you have any information, you know, please just contact your local authorities. Everybody continue to just keep your prayers.
I mean, I'm honestly just devastated and I could never imagine anything like this just happening. I'm going to do everything I can to keep you guys updated and just keep you guys informed on what's going on. I love you all.
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BRUNHUBER: Meanwhile, we're getting more pictures from that fateful night and hearing more from those caught the middle of it.
Look what happens when two people tried to alert a camera man about what was going on.
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(INAUDIBLE).
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Sadly their attempts to stop the show appear to have been ignored. Earlier, CNN spoke to two concertgoers who say they've been to several Travis Scott concerts before and they've never seen anything like this.
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DANA SCHLOMOVITS, FESTIVAL CONCERTGOER: Teenagers were giving CPR to other teenagers because the medical staff wasn't well-equipped to handle this. They weren't -- they didn't know how to do CPR. So people's friends were giving CPR to each other.
BATOOL NAJI, FESTIVAL CONCERTGOER: People that were pulled out were, actually after they woke up were told to help out give CPR, even though they had just woke up from being passed out SCHLOMOVITS: We -- just there was -- there was no time to breathe. So it wasn't really I think I'm going to -- it was, I'm going to die, I need to breathe.
NAJI: Exactly. Yes, it was more of a I can't breathe thing, that's the point where I didn't know if I was going to make it out of there.
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BRUNHUBER: So how could something like this happen in the first place?
How could so many people get trapped with nowhere to go in such a wide open area?
Houston's fire chief explained what went into the planning ahead of the concert. Here he is.
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CHIEF SAMUEL PENA, HOUSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT: When we have large events, one of the things that we consider is to ensure that the crowds are subdivided. They had two separate stages and two separate areas. That was part of the plan.
We had inspectors to ensure that the means of egress, the doors in and out of that venue, were maintained open and unobstructed. What we're looking into is what caused the crowd surge, what led to the crowd surge and those incidents at the point of the -- of the -- where the concert was being at, the stage.
So again, our role in this is to participate with the police department. We're going to be looking at the films and the video as the chief mentioned and we're going to ensure that the item that should have been in place were in place and that we learn from this event.
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BRUNHUBER: The company responsible for organizing the festival, Live Nation, issued this statement, "Heartbroken for those lost and impacted at Astroworld last night. We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation."
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BRUNHUBER: Paul Wertheimer is the founder and head of Crowd Management Strategies and he joins me from Los Angeles.
Thanks so much for being here with us.
So when you heard what had happened and saw some of the footage, you know, from the crowd and so on, what was your first reaction? PAUL WERTHEIMER, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, CROWD MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: Well, I thought this is a classic, preventable crowd craze tragedy. A crowd craze is when people move toward something of perceived value.
And in this place, in this case, it is the artist on stage. It is a known kind of disaster that occurs at rock concerts. And it could have been prevented through proper planning and management of the crowd.
BRUNHUBER: So before we get into that, I just want to know a bit more about how this happens. Take us through the mechanics of how a surging crowd can become so deadly.
WERTHEIMER: Well, a surging crowd becomes really deadly when the crowd capacity is not appropriate, when the crowd becomes too large and they move, like I said, in this case, in a crowd-crazed manner toward perceived -- something of perceived value, toward the front of the stage.
This tragedy builds over time. It doesn't just happen like a lightning strike. It takes time, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour sometimes, for the crowd to build.
And people just continue to -- if they're not managed properly and prevented from moving forward, they just keep moving forward to get toward the stage. This is done in a crowd festival kind of crowd configuration.
Crowd festival standing room is the most dangerous and deadly crowd configuration in rock 'n' roll and festivals, always has been. That's why it is so important to manage a festival seating crowd properly.
And the promoter and the artist and the security and the venue operator and those who approved the plan for this festival knew or should have known of the danger of festival -- unmanaged festival seating and knew or should have known of national standards and techniques to prevent this very type of disaster.
BRUNHUBER: What needs to happen to make sure things like this never happen again?
WERTHEIMER: I'll tell you what needs to be happening. People need to be held criminally liable, the people who plan and manage and approve these events. That's the fact.
Until they're held responsible, this -- these kind of disasters will drone on as they have since the beginning of rock 'n' roll. You've got -- those responsible for the safety of people in crowds have to follow proper safety features, which are known throughout the industry.
BRUNHUBER: And lastly, you know, for concertgoers, what advice can you quickly give them, dangerous signs to look for, things like that so this doesn't happen to them?
WERTHEIMER: Of course, people in the crowd, I spent over 15 years to 18 years in crowds just like this; they assume their safety is being looked after. But in fact, there is no safety net. It is hard for them to recognize the dangers.
It is not the role of 16-year-old Susie or 18-year-old Johnny to be fire marshal, crowd security guard and crowd safety expert.
But what you can do and what some people are able to do is recognize impending dangers, when the crush is getting serious and breathing is getting difficult.
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WERTHEIMER: But the fact of the matter is, the people responsible for the safety of people in crowds are those people who organize the event, manage the event, profit from the event and approve the event.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, let's hope some changes are put into place here. Really appreciate your expertise, thanks so much.
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BRUNHUBER: We have more coverage of the Astroworld concert tragedy, including the latest updates, any time of day or night at cnn.com.
The U.S. is condemning a brazen assassination attempt on Iraq's prime minister. Mustafa al-Kadhimi has survived a drone strike in Baghdad's green zone in what the State Department calls "an apparent act of terrorism."
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh joins us from Istanbul.
What can you tell us about what happened and who might be behind it?
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kim, clearly, a very dangerous, unprecedented sort of development in the situation in Iraq overnight, as we understand from the Iraqi security services.
This attack, this attempted assassination took place in the early hours Sunday. The prime minister was returning to his residence inside the fortified green zone. That's where you've got several embassies including the U.S. embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.
He was out visiting troops, guarding the green zone, when he returned to his home. That is when this strike, with a drone laden with explosives, we understand, as you mentioned, Iraqi security forces are saying that two other drones were taken down.
But one hit the prime minister's residence, causing extensive damages we can see and, according to officials, a number of his security detail were injured in this incident. Now so far no one has claimed responsibility for this attack, this brazen attack.
But as we've just in the past few moments gotten a statement from Iraq's National Security Council, they are blaming what they describe as criminal armed groups. They say those groups have misread the government's restraint and professionalism as weakness and that they are targeting now the Iraqi government and its symbols. The government there vowing to investigate and hold accountable
whoever is responsible. The term "armed criminal groups" is a term Iraqi officials in the past have used to describe the Iranian-backed militias in the country.
These are the groups people would suspect are behind these attacks. They carried out these sort of drone strikes, targeting U.S. bases in the green zone in the past.
But these groups, several of them, the most significant Kataib Hezbollah, all releasing statements in the past few hours basically distancing themselves from this attack, saying they had nothing to do with it, even questioning whether this attack even took place.
Some are calling for independent investigation into it saying that this is basically trying to set them up and stir (ph) chaos in the country. Now Kim, we need to keep in mind what has been going on in the leadup of this assassination. Tensions have been so high in Iraq since October 10th elections.
These Iranian-backed groups emerged as the biggest losers in that election. They lost a lot of the seats they had in parliament before. And they have been refusing to accept the results of the elections that they've described as fraudulent elections.
We have seen their supporters for weeks, protesting outside the heavily fortified green zone. And on Friday, that turned violent, as the supporters of these groups tried to storm the green zone, clashed with security forces and at least one was killed and dozens others were injured in other serious escalations.
A lot of concern about how does Iraq step back from the brink after this serious escalation.
Not only that, how do they deal with the situation, when you have these heavily armed powerful groups that the Iraqi government in the past has not been able to hold accountable for crimes they have been accused of?
And how do they deal with this current situation that is being described by Iraqi officials, including the Iraqi president, as an attempt to drag Iraq into chaos and a coup against the constitutional process?
A very, very critical and dangerous moment that is unfolding right now in Iraq, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. Disturbing escalation, as you say. Thanks so much.
President Biden notches a critical win in Congress on infrastructure.
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BRUNHUBER: But now he has to gear up for an even bigger fight on the rest of his domestic agenda. So we'll talk about what's at stake with political analyst Ron Brownstein. Plus a fuel tanker explodes, killing dozens. Why the deadly accident
happened and why it isn't uncommon in the region. We'll have a live report from Sierra Leone coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: President Biden and senior administration officials will fan out across the U.S. in coming weeks to promote the trillion dollar infrastructure bill that finally cleared Congress late Friday.
It represents America's largest ever investment in the vital public systems that help power the economy.
But even as the president savors the win on infrastructure, the rest of his ambitious agenda is far less certain. CNN's Arlette Saenz has the latest from the White House.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Biden plans to hit the road to promote the newly passed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure proposal.
A White House official says that the president and top cabinet officials will be fanning out across the country over the course of the next few weeks --
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SAENZ: -- to explain to the American people what exactly is in this plan.
Now while the White House is taking a victory lap on that bipartisan infrastructure bill that the president will soon sign into law, there still remain questions about the larger social safety net package he's hoping to get passed in Congress.
Now moderates and progressives came to an agreement, with moderates committing to hold a vote on the package by the week of November 15th. There are still questions on whether moderates will stick to that plan and what will happen when the bill makes its way over to the Senate.
President Biden expressed confidence that it will pass. Take a listen.
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BIDEN: I'm not going to get into who made what commitments to me. I don't negotiate in public. I feel confident, I feel confident we will have enough votes to pass the Build Back Better plan.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SAENZ: As they await the fate of that plan, President Biden said he soon will be signing the infrastructure bill into law. He plans to host a signing ceremony here at the White House to bring together both the Republicans and Democrats that came together to work on that bill -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: Ron Brownstein is a senior CNN political analyst and senior editor at "The Atlantic." He joins me from Los Angeles.
Thank you for being with us. Let's start the with achievement itself.
For those watching this at home, how will their lives get better and which Americans stand to benefit most concretely from this?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: There is the potential here this is part of a broader package that is the biggest infusion of public investment from the government into the economy since the 1960s, early 1960s as a share of total GDP.
The president will be signing a bill that includes big investments in what we can -- historically have thought of as infrastructure, fixing bridges and roads but also in beginning the transition to a clean energy economy, with a lot of money for modernizing the electric grid, for building EV -- electric vehicle charging stations around the country, for supporting mass transit.
BRUNHUBER: President Biden touted this as a, quote, "blue collar blueprint" to rebuild America.
So does this help there in those swing states, among those blue collar voters or, you know, when it comes to the election, will cultural issues still dominate?
BROWNSTEIN: That is a great question. The fundamental bet politically, one of the fundamental bets politically that Biden has placed, is his belief that, if he focuses on kitchen table issues -- shots in the arms, checks in the pocket, shovels in the ground -- that he can win back some of the working class white voters and even now some working class Hispanic voters who have been drawn to conservative Republican message on a broad array of cultural, racial and identity issues.
There is no guarantee that it is going to work. But this is going to be the best, I think, test of this theory, which has really been an argument in the Democratic Party for as long as I've been covering politics, for 30 years.
There have been Democratic strategists arguing that, if the party can show working class voters that government can deliver for them, can make a positive difference in their lives, that they can win back some of those voters.
Now, you know, there is a lot in these two packages that will potentially do that. This does have a heavy tilt, the infrastructure plan, toward creating blue collar jobs. And when you get to the broader package, things like the child tax credit, child care subsidies, lower prescription drug costs, lower healthcare prices, there is an opportunity to make a difference on the bottom line of families.
But whether that overcomes the cultural barriers there with the Democratic Party, very much remains to be seen.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, so this and Build Back Better, there seem to be coming together in the worst way imaginable in terms of process. And the narrative is forming that it will hurt Democrats and the president in the midterms and so on.
But is that right?
Do voters care about process?
You made an interesting link with something you wrote in 1994, I think, about the way Democrats and the president, you know, were putting -- the Democrats were putting their self-interests over president and party and that ended up going pretty poorly. So explain the parallels that are there that you're seeing almost 30 years later.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. So the broad point is that legislative success is necessary but usually not sufficient to guarantee political success in year two.
Ronald Reagan passed his tax cuts in '81; Republican lost seats in '82. Lyndon Johnson had the Great Society Congress; in '65, created Medicare/Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. They lost seats in '66.
Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and lost seats in 2010. So it is no guarantee of success.
But it can be a -- you know, obviously legislative achievements can be important, once they have time to kind of penetrate and kind of infuse people's lives.
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BROWNSTEIN: And that's why they are often more valuable for a president running for re-election than they are for his party in the midterm a few months later.
What happened in '94 was the other side of the coin, where Democratic divisions ultimately almost derailed President Clinton's economic agenda and then did in fact derail his healthcare plan and, for a time, the sweeping crime bill.
And what happened was the Left and the Right of the Democratic Party each made decisions that they thought were in their logical self- interest, voting against the parts of all of these plans that they thought would hurt them at home.
But what they failed to consider was what any management -- anybody who has been in business school out there, will tell you is called the prisoner's dilemma, the idea each side in maximizing their self- interest increases the risk to all of them.
That's exactly what happened. The Left and the Right all thought they were helping themselves by voting against key components of the Clinton agenda. But in the end, they cemented an issue -- an image of dysfunction that hurt them all.
That really is the risk to Democrats in the way this has unfolded for so many months. They seem to be kind of distracted in their own internal struggles and stalemate while the country is -- wants to see action and particularly wants to see action on controlling COVID and getting inflation and the economy more stable.
So there is a real risk that, even if they pass this, they have discredited, to some extent, but they're still much better off doing it than not.
BRUNHUBER: All right, we'll see if history repeats itself. Always appreciate your analysis. Ron Brownstein, thanks so much.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
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BRUNHUBER: Ethiopia's government prepares for war in the capital as rebels advance. We'll explain what it's asking from military veterans when we come back.
Plus, Greece turns up the pressure on the unvaccinated, as much of Europe grapples with a surge in COVID cases. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Returning now to our top story, a fun-filled night of music turns deadly at a concert in Houston, Texas. Eight people between the ages of 14 and 27 lost their lives Friday when the crowd rushed the stage at the Astroworld music festival.
One concertgoer described the incident as "a death trap," with people struggling to even breathe.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): You can see an ambulance the middle of the massive crowd but nobody seems to notice and the music plays on. CNN's Pamela Brown spoke with a witness about what he saw Friday night.
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BILLY NASSER, ASTROWORLD FESTIVAL ATTENDEE: People were getting trampled. They're losing their balance and then tripping over to people on the floor. And people were just dying left and right.
The heat lasted about 15 minutes after Travis came onto the stage and just progressively got worse. There were shoving -- the barricades couldn't accommodate all the people that were there. It was too small. It was a death trap, basically.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: A death trap?
And what was that like for you to be caught in the middle of that?
NASSER: I've seen kids pass out before but everyone usually always helps out.
But in this time, people are basically fighting for their life. I was trying to pick kids up. They were getting stomped on. And I picked some kid up and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. So I checked his pulse.
I knew he was dead and then I checked the people around me and just had to leave him there, there was nothing I could do. I had to keep going.
BROWN: So even in the midst of the chaos, you were trying to help someone else, check their pulse, there was no pulse.
What was going through your mind as this was all unfolding?
NASSER: It was really frustrating. I wanted the music to stop and I wanted everyone around me to realize what was going on. But people didn't have very much, like, self-awareness. It was like kids were just going crazy and partying for the festival and they weren't actually paying attention to the bodies that were dropping behind them.
BROWN: Did you feel like, as this was unfolding, it was getting really bad, you're there trying to help the situation, that there was enough security guards or people there, who were supposed to be jumping in at moments like this to contain the situation?
NASSER: No. No, no, no. There wasn't enough security guards and there wasn't enough EMTs or people helping out the crowd. The paramedics couldn't even reach the crowd. I was in an area that I was trying to lift kids out of the crowd that wasn't being reached. And the ambulance, that little golf cart ambulance got to us about 30-45 minutes after I saw like 10 to 20 people passed away.
BROWN: Did you fear for your life?
Did you think you were going to die?
You described it earlier as a death trap.
Is that what you thought was going to happen to you?
NASSER: Yes. I've been in crazy mosh pits like this, so I know how to maneuver my way out. But for people who were in there for their first time, I just felt bad for them because they didn't know what to do. And a lot of these kids go there to see Travis Scott and Fortnite and they're younger kids and they don't know what to expect.
And when I was posting the content from what happened at the show, I just wanted to be able to see the reality of how these festivals can be. It's very dangerous.
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BRUNHUBER: Police say the cause of the crowd surge is still unknown but both the Narcotics and Homicide Divisions have now joined that investigation.
More countries are telling their nonessential staff to leave Ethiopia, amid fears a rebel alliance could bring all-out war to the capital. Videos show pro-government rallies in the capital as officials try to downplay the crisis. And the military's calling on veterans to rejoin the armed forces on top a state of emergency allowing conscription.
For more on all this let's join CNN's Melissa Bell, standing by in Paris.
Melissa, the U.S. has tried to broker peace. They've sent envoys, trying to pressure the government. Doesn't seem to have worked and now the U.S. government is telling Americans to leave the country.
Does that suggest a diplomatic solution isn't likely here?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that's the big question, especially amid this ratcheting up of nationalist sentiment, the creation of an alliance, on one hand, of rebel parties, both military and political parties opposed to the government in Addis Ababa.
This morning, this rally that we saw many thousands turned out in support of the Ethiopian government and decrying what it -- we saw on the signs, the posters held by some demonstrators, what the government describes as the international media's false reporting of the situation on the ground and exaggerated importance it's given to the rebel advance.
That's the position of the Ethiopian government, represented by those who came out in its favor today.
But amid that ratcheting up of sentiment on both sides, the entrenching of positions on either side, there is, of course, all of that diplomacy going on behind the scenes. The U.S. special envoy to the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman extending his stay.
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BELL: He's due today in the Kenyan capital for a meeting with the president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who in his role as the chair of the East African economic bloc is going to try also to work to some sort of compromise, some sort of aim, to try to get all the parties sitting around a table together that talks should happen.
I asked just a few moments ago a senior African diplomatic source in Addis Ababa what the chances were of diplomacy, how much hope is there at this stage that words, that negotiations can happen and pull everyone back from the brink of what the U.N. Human Rights chief warned could be an all-out civil war.
The answer came back that, look, it's a very small window. But the truth is that Ethiopia is too big to fail and the alternative simply too bleak to contemplate.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, let's hope a peaceful resolution can be found there. Thanks for your reporting, CNN's Melissa Bell in Paris for us.
At least 98 people are dead after a fuel tanker exploded in Sierra Leone. It happened in Freetown, when two trucks collided, causing the tanker to leak fuel. Journalist Umaru Fofana joins me with more from Freetown.
So you were there on the scene. It must have been horrifying. Describe what you saw and take us through what happened.
UMARU FOFANA, JOURNALIST: Well, it really was horrifying. It was on Friday night. A fuel tanker was apparently going to unload its contents at the gas station. And then a truck rammed into this tanker.
And then nearby, taxi riders (INAUDIBLE) there was a leakage of fuel from the tanker. And there was cupping the fuel (ph) then all of a sudden there was an explosion. The fireball just entirely enveloped the whole area, including lots of vehicles, which had been caught up in the traffic jam that this accident had brought about.
So eventually lots of the (INAUDIBLE) got the fuel (ph) and some of the passengers in their cars were heading home at about 8:00 in the evening, got caught up in this whole inferno, which has up to this moment killed at least 98 people with about 95 still admitted. I'm talking now from the Central Morgan Freetown (ph) mortuary. The bodies are being put into body bags, being prepared for burial.
We yet don't know whether it will be a mass burial. Yesterday, people, relatives were called to come and identify their loved ones. But the bodies are in such a state that it was very difficult for them to identify their relatives.
So we don't know what will happen in terms of whether they will be buried en masse or what will happen next. The president, who was in Scotland, returned last night and, as I talk to you now, he is at the scene of the accident in the eastern suburb of Wellington. He's expected to make an announcement once he finishes a complete (INAUDIBLE) tour.
BRUNHUBER: We're looking at the pictures right now. We can understand, as you're saying, that the bodies might be too burned to identify.
Can you take us through, explain why people would be risking their lives to collect fuel like that, which led to this high death toll?
FOFANA: Well, obviously, when it's happened, these (INAUDIBLE) around there, mostly young people, who are otherwise jobless. I mean, livelihood, survival here is a real hustle for many people.
And amongst those young people who do this (INAUDIBLE) taxi riding, so when they saw the leakage of the fuel, they thought that was an opportunity for them. And videos have emerged from seconds before the inferno, from moments before the inferno happened, when these young people would scoop the fuel in open containers.
They would take the fuel and store it somewhere, return to the scene, scoop a lot more. Their numbers obviously increased. And we yet do not know what led to the explosion. But they (INAUDIBLE) because they were looking for a shortcut (INAUDIBLE) to be able to eke out a living.
BRUNHUBER: Gosh. It's not uncommon in Africa. Unfortunately, I remember a similar incident in Tanzania a few years ago, that had a huge death toll as well.
In terms of this accident, I know from my time there in Sierra Leone, that the hospital systems aren't necessarily equipped for something like this, dealing with so many victims, especially after so many healthcare workers lost their lives after the Ebola epidemic.
So how are they coping with all of the wounded?
FOFANA: Well, a medical doctor told me this morning that they have been surviving it all by the skin of their teeth. This is a country, whole healthcare system, even in the best of times, struggles. So with such a sheer number of victims or injured people being brought into this facility, clearly, it's very tough.
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FOFANA: The mortuary is situated, where I'm talking to you from (ph), at the country's main hospital. When it happened on Friday night, doctors and other healthcare workers were called to come back, to report to duty.
They were able to see through some of patients overnight into Saturday morning but even (INAUDIBLE) it was very tough thing from them to go through.
The cost recovery (ph) pharmacy was open to them, so there was no need for anybody to buy any drugs. And all the drugs are put at their disposal as announced by the central government. But otherwise, they still are struggling because it's a facility that is underresourced, even in the best of times.
BRUNHUBER: It's sad that this country, that has seen more of its share of tragedies, should go through something like this. Listen, we really appreciate you -- having you on, journalist Umaru Fofana in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Thanks so much.
FOFANA: Thanks. BRUNHUBER: The U.S. has just crossed a symbolic milestone in its COVID
vaccination campaign. The CDC says 70 percent of American adults or more than 180 million people are now fully vaccinated. So if you look at the entire population, not just adults, it's more than 58 percent.
And you have to remember, children 5 to 11 years old just started getting the vaccine this past week.
But the president's plan to get shots in the arms of more adults is facing a pushback in court. More than 2 dozen states are suing the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate for workers at large, private companies.
On Saturday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans temporarily blocked the mandate, saying it raises grave legal and constitutional questions. The government has until Monday night to respond. The Justice Department says it will vigorously defend the mandate.
Concerns are growing that Europe could be in for a rough winter as the pandemic comes surging back. Russia is the latest country to see a record number of COVID cases in recent days. They reported more than 41,000 new infections on Saturday.
The virus is sweeping across the continent, with at least five other nations seeing record case numbers over the past week. One of them is Greece, where new restrictions for the unvaccinated went into effect Saturday. They are now required to show a negative test before they can go to banks or shops or get access to social services.
Still ahead, from Seoul to Sydney, people gather around the world to demand less talk and more action from their leaders on the climate crisis. Please stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Activists took to the streets in cities around the world on Saturday, demanding more urgent action on the climate crisis. It comes as world leaders are set to begin a second week of climate talks at COP26 in Glasgow.
This was the scene in Seoul, South Korea, as protesters marched alongside a large red ball, symbolizing a burning Earth.
In Australia, activists carried this giant smoldering koala puppet. They say it illustrates what will happen to the animal if more isn't done to tackle climate change.
And this was the scene in London; thousands of people calling for less talk and more action on the climate crisis. Glasgow, the site of the COP26 summit, tens of thousands of people
marched through sometimes heavy rain, calling on world leaders to take urgent action to stop climate change before it's too late. Organizers say more than 100,000 people from around the world showed up for Saturday's demonstration.
From Mexico to Argentina, drought conditions are making themselves felt across Latin America. Lack of rainfall in the Amazon is leading to more wildfires and deforestation. And, in Paraguay, the Parana River is at its lowest level in decades. Here's CNN's Rafael Romo with the story.
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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): Winding through three different countries, the Parana is the second longest river in South America after the Amazon. It flows for nearly 4,900 kilometers, 3,000 miles, through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.
The Parana not only provides water for all three countries, it is a crucial waterway for Paraguay's commerce, according to the country's director of the River and Ocean Navigators' Association. But since April, that commerce has been dead in the water, due to the rivers low levels.
The impact of the Paraguayan foreign trade is very important, Munoz says, because 96 percent of this commerce is done through the waterways. The problems caused by the low water levels go beyond commerce.
The Parana feeds two crucial hydroelectric plants, Itaipu, which provides power to both Paraguay and Brazil, and Yacyreta, which is shared with Argentina.
Lucas Chamorro, a chief engineer at Yacyreta, says during the Southern Hemisphere's past winter, the Parana had its lowest water levels in more than 50 years which meant at 25 percent decrease in the power plants' ability to produce energy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a very serious problem.
ROMO: Maria Jose Villanueva, a leader for World Wildlife Fund Mexico, an environmental organization says, drought conditions are affecting a wide (inaudible) of Latin America. And explain serious problems like increasing wildfires in Brazil's Amazon.
MARIA JOSE VILLANUEVA, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND MEXICO: It is something that we are seeing exacerbated along the region, in Mexico, to Argentina, the lack of rainfall that is caused by climate change. But it's also exacerbated by the different drivers like, land use degradation, deforestation and overexploitation of aquifers.
ROMO: Are there any other explanations different from climate change?
VILLANUEVA: What have happened all across the human and nature of the earth's history? However the climate change is exacerbating the periods of lack of rainfall.
ROMO: Last year, NASA published a map of severe drought conditions in South America showing parched land in dark red.
Earlier this month, local media reported that unusually powerful sandstorms have left at least six people dead in Brazil, a situation caused in part by severe drought conditions grappling the country southeast. And back in May, a surreal scene developed in Northwestern Mexico.
For the first time in more than three decades, residents in a town in Sinaloa state were able to visit the tombs of loved ones in the cemetery that had been underwater after a dam was built there in 1987.
The country was going through one of its worst droughts in recent memory. In April, Mexico's water authority reported that 75 percent of its territory was experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions.
A report by the Washington-based American Society and Council of the Americas, published over the summer, stated that abnormally dry conditions in Argentina, Brazil --
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ROMO: -- Mexico and Paraguay threatened water reserves and economic recovery, a situation that may not reverse itself, experts say, unless factors like deforestation, illegal mining and over-exploitation of natural water resources are halted -- Rafael Romo, CNN, Mexico City.
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BRUNHUBER: And we'll be right back. Please stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Fans are remembering the life of Brazilian singer Marilia Mendonca. On Saturday, thousands flocked to the artist's hometown for a public wake, getting to walk by her casket to say goodbye. The 26- year-old Latin Grammy winner, along with four other people, tragically died in a plane crash Friday. Stefano Pozzebon tells us more about the singer's life.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was through songs like this the singer Marilia Mendonca captured the hearts of millions of country music fans in Brazil.
Just 26 years old with a deep, soulful voice, she was one of Brazil's most beloved singers, performing songs of love and betrayal, becoming a national star just five years ago with a hit about infidelity.
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POZZEBON (voice-over): But the singer's life was tragically cut short Friday when her private plane crashed, killing her and four others on board as they traveled to a concert some 500 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro.
A local utility company says the plane hit a cable on an electric tower before crashing. Thousands of fans have gathered in her hometown, where a wake was held on Saturday, coming from different parts of Brazil to honor her memory.
Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro expressed his condolences, saying she was one of the greatest artists of her generation.
Brazilian footballer Neymar tweeted he refused to believe that she was gone.
Mendonca was widely popular in Brazil, transforming a traditional genre of music in the country into an international pop sensation.
During the early days of pandemic in 2020, she performed a quarantine concert from her home, which set a live streaming worldwide record on YouTube with 3.3 million peak concurrent viewers.
A Latin Grammy winner in 2019, she had more than 38 million followers on Instagram. In one of her last posts on social media, she gave a glimpse of what life was like on the road and one last look at the rising star and a voice silenced too soon -- Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, Bogota.
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BRUNHUBER: I'm Kim Brunhuber in Atlanta, thanks so much for watching. For viewers in North America, "NEW DAY" is next. For the rest, stay tuned for "Going Green."
