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Colombia Reels From Deadly Quake; Trump Responds To Iran's Demands; Artist Uses Travels To Create "Mind Maps". Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 11, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:31]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everybody. Welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. Ahead this hour, people are still being told to evacuate. And this is buildings crumble from that deadly earthquake that devastated parts of Colombia.

And President Trump issuing his latest conditions for ending the war with Iran after Tehran spelled out its demands over the weekend. Also, how one British artist uses his travels to inspire Croatians he calls Mind Maps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from New York, this is CNN Newsroom with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: All right. Let's begin this hour with the devastating aftermath of a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western Colombia. You see people there scrambling for safety. Officials say that at least 132 people have been killed so far in a total of five major cities were under a red alert after a quake collapsed dozens of buildings, damaged hospitals and also shut down seven airports.

The country's geological service says that the quake is the strongest to hit Colombia this century and the epicenter was located in the Choco region near Colombia's Pacific Coast. Local officials are urging people right now to evacuate any buildings that are showing signs of structural damage. The video you're looking at showing parts of a church also crumbling as people cling onto one another hoping to stay on their feet. You see there parts of the cathedral coming tumbling down.

Colombia's new president, who just took office on Friday, has declared a state of national disaster.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABELARDO DE LA ESPRIELLA, COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT (voiceover): We are confident that with God's help and the support of the new government, we will be able to overcome this terrible ordeal that today has plunged all of Colombia and of course, the people of Choco into mourning. Let this be an opportunity to tell the country that Choco will never again be the forgotten land. (END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: CNN's Stefano Pozzebon joining me live from Rome. Stefano, you were based out of Colombia for many years. You know the region well. What are you hearing from your sources about the scale of the devastation and those ongoing efforts to rescue people?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Polo. Well, overnight we are seeing that the Colombian authorities are updating the death toll and unfortunately, that normally means that more and more people are pronounced dead. For example, earlier today at 1am local time down in Colombia, the mayor of Cali, Alejandro there updated the death toll in that city, saying that at least 85 people have been killed, with more than 40 the city collapsed by the force of that earthquake. Cali is the largest city in the southwest of Colombia.

It's the third largest in the country. And it's where actually the president, Abellardo Espriella was sworn in to begin his mandate just on Friday. A moment also to think about the challenge that this young president is facing. It's the first time he's held elected office.

He came into power, Polo, as an outsider, and now he's one of the most dangerous, one of the most serious natural disasters that Colombia has faced in recent history. I think that according to the Colombian Geological Service, this is the strongest earthquake to be recorded in the country in over a decade. But the only comparison that they were able to provide to us was another devastating earthquake back in the 1970s. It's truly a horrific tragedy that is hitting right on the first day of the job of Abellardo de la Espriella was meant to begin his day in office yesterday, Monday morning when the earthquake struck at around 7:30 a.m. local time.

So you can see that there is a frenzy in the response from the government, trying to come up with the resources necessary and with the management necessary to face up this terrible tragedy. Abellardo de la Espriella himself yesterday traveled to Cali and to the Choco region, which is further north from Cali, and it's where the epicenter is located. But, of course, we can hear from authorities on the ground that it's a massive large scale disaster that has to be managed from, from the central power. Polo.

[04:05:18]

SANDOVAL: Yes, it was just earlier this summer, Stefano, as you know, that the Colombians sent resources to Venezuela to deal with that earthquake, and now they're having to deal with that closer to home. Stefano Pozzebon, thank you so much for that live reporting.

Joining us now is the U.N. World Food Programme's country director for Colombia, Nils Grading, joining me for an update on the situation there. Nils, thank you so much for joining us.

NILS GREDE, COUNTRY DIRECTOR FOR COLOMBIA, U.N. WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: You're very welcome. Good morning. Thank you for letting us tell you a bit of what Colombia is going through right now. SANDOVAL: Of course, as we approach 24 hours now since the initial quake, are you getting a better sense of where some of the support is needed and also what kind of resources are urgently needed?

GREDE: Well, the first thing in a quake like this, and we've just gone through this experience in Venezuela two months ago, is obviously going through the rubble saving lives. But very quickly, within the next few days, we will need to provide food assistance. And the World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian agency. We have fortunately plenty of food stocks available in warehouses that were only partially damaged in the area of the earthquake.

So we're offering our assistance to the government. There's a meeting later today of the humanitarian country team with the participation from the government. And there we will discuss more precisely what assistance is needed. But we can already tell that food assistance will be important in these first days after the catastrophe.

SANDOVAL: And just for our viewers' awareness, even though you join us from Spain, your duty station is Bogota. So you know, you know the country well, you know the people, and also some of the challenges. What are some of those challenges you think that rescuers are up against?

GREDE: Yes, in comparison to the Venezuelan earthquake that just happened two months ago, this is partially affecting an area that is very remote. The Choco region has about half a million inhabitants, and it has very few roads. Most of the transport is by river. So also, it will take time for us to understand the real magnitude because we can reach the cities quickly. But to get to the more remote areas will take time.

Already in the last few hours, the number -- the death toll went from 130 to 255. The number of injured tripled. The number of buildings that were reported collapsed tripled as well.

We now understand at least 5,000 buildings are affected. So these numbers keep rising very quickly, and frankly, we don't know when will they stop rising. I think it's a useful comparison with Venezuela. With Venezuela, two months ago, the twin earthquake.

On day one, we had 32 fatalities. On day two, we had 235. On day three, we had 1,430. And in the end, today we know there's about 6,300 people at least, that died.

So just to tell you that the first 24 hours are always difficult to assess the exact magnitude, and therefore, it's also difficult for us to say now how much assistance will be needed. What we can say is that assistance will be needed, and the government has signaled last night that it will request international assistance. So, this is also a call from the World Food Programme to the world to show its solidarity with Colombia.

SANDOVAL: Speak to the paralyzing nature of this event. We know that there are many major airports that are either closed or restricted travel so that emergency personnel can go in and out. And then also, just what you touched on just a second ago, it is a very rural part of the country. So, do you think that will perhaps make further complicate the recovery and the rescues?

GREDE: Indeed, it will be challenging. Some of the areas are quite urban that are affected. For example, the cities of Pereira and Manizales, which are just 100 km east of the epicenter where the largest destructions have been reported. They are quite urban and they're easily reachable.

But Choco region is the bigger challenge. And there it will take us certainly days.

Now, the good news is that we always operate in Choco region. We have an office there. We have another office in Cali, which is also close to the epicenter. We have warehouses in both of these places. So we're prepared.

We're routinely distributing to 200,000 to 250,000 people in Choco region every year because of other disasters often related to the armed conflict in Colombia. So, you know, within the bad situation, the good news is that we have our logistics infrastructure set up and trained. So, I'm confident that if the government requests this assistance, that we will quickly be able to assist.

[04:10:02]

Coming back to Venezuela, also very challenging circumstances. We have reached 220,000 people there, and we don't know yet the magnitude that this will take in Colombia. But we could see similar levels very quickly.

We have enough food stocks to reach such a number of people. So I'm confident we will be able to assist Colombians in this difficult hour.

SANDOVAL: Nils, I have less than 30 seconds with you. Just, just give us a sense of people there. Are they usually prepared for an event of this magnitude? Do they hold earthquake drills?

I mean, as you heard from Stefano a little while ago, they have seen the deadly potential of an earthquake in the past.

GREDE: Yes, I think they're, they're used to emergencies, not necessarily to this large scale and earthquakes specifically. But the country is a country that is going through, has been going for a century through conflict with about 10 million victims of conflict, or one out of every five Colombians is a victim of conflict. So there is a lot of institutions also a very strong institutional framework, that will help us provide the support that is needed.

GREDE: Thank you for that context and of course, all the valuable work and important work that you and the rest of the members of the U.N. World Food Programme are doing right now to help people. That's again, Nils Grede joining us. Thank you.

GREDE: Thank you, Polo. SANDOVAL: All right. Now let's get you another update. The U.S. and Iran, they appear no closer to reaching an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has responded to Tehran's latest list of demands to reopen that critical waterway. He wrote in part, quote, "I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded."

And the president also doubled down on that stance during this White House appearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said this last round of talks was Iran's last chance before decapitation. So what now? What comes next?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You'll find out. You'll find out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you still a massive escalation? Is that still on the table?

TRUMP: Well, we have that certainly that ability if we want to do that. Yes, you'll find out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said you're low keying it with them.

TRUMP: I didn't say that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Semi-negotiating. What exactly does that mean?

TRUMP: Well, the asked for -- they asked for reparations, you might say, or they asked for money for the damage that we've done. I said that's a good idea. Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period. If there's damages to be paid, I think Iran should pay those damages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: CNN's Paula Hancocks is joining me live from Abu Dhabi with the latest. So, Paula, what else are you learning about President Trump's demand for compensation from Iran and how Tehran is responding?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, at this point, what we've heard from the U.S. President is that he is listening to Tehran's demand over the weekend that there are war reparations and is taking it as his own. So, doubling down and saying that the U.S. will do exactly the same, really quite similar to what we saw with -- with the naval blockade as Iran was saying it was not going to open the Strait of Hormuz. Then President Trump said, well, we will put our own naval block when it comes to Iranian ports and Iranian vessels.

So, what we've heard from the U.S. President is that this, he says, will be money compensation, of course, very unlikely to ever be realized. But he said it would be given to victims of roadside bombs, victims of the conflicts for which Iran are famously involved in, and also saying that what he said, hundreds of thousands of protesters that have been killed by Iran over the past 50 years, their families would be compensated as well. So, a case of the U.S. President doubling down and effectively copying what he has heard from the Revolutionary Guard over the weekend.

We did hear from the Revolutionary Guard that this was one of the conditions they were now putting on the U.S. before they opened the Strait of Hormuz. In addition to this compensation, they also said that all frozen assets should be released, that all the naval blockade should be lifted, all military assets should be moved away from Iran.

Now, these were all part of the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the US and Iran back in June. But that was supposed to be a phased approach. We're seeing a more hardened approach now from Iran, saying that these are conditions before they say that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.

So, all of this really shows us that both sides are still very far apart, that we're, we don't appear to be close to any potential reaching of an agreement by the two sides.

Now, you add to that what we heard from the U.S. treasury as well. They have said that they have imposed new U.S. sanctions on people, on exchange houses, on companies that they say have been involved with helping Iran fund their military, military program.

[04:15:19]

Now, what we have seen at this point from Iran is that this will not make a difference. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson saying that Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by the these exhausted refrains, also saying that any sanctions like this will make any diplomatic situation even less likely. Polo.

SANDOVAL: Yes, they certainly have shown an incredible, incredibly high level of resilience. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much for that live report from Abu Dhabi.

Now I want to turn to what is an absolutely stunning revelation on how President Trump hid in a catering cart to board a secret flight due to an Iranian assassination threat. The Washington Post reporting that it happened when he was leaving that NATO summit in Turkey last month.

President Trump was seen boarding Air Force One, but minutes later, according to reporting, he and several aides secretly exited that aircraft and stepped onto an airport catering truck, where the truck that's circled in this video that you see here then transported the president to a smaller military aircraft.

Meanwhile, Air Force One took off with journalists and other White House staff on board, serving as a decoy. And then, once both planes arrived in England hours later, President Trump was secretly put back onto that 747 and was seen disembarking as he normally would. Well, here's what the Washington Post reporter told CNN about the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAN LAMOTHE, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: For weeks

now, the American public talking about the two Air Force One jets, the newer one from Qatar and the older one from the last couple decades of operations. And in reality, the president was on neither plane. You had the newer jet from Qatar that landed with a relatively nondescript call sign a couple hours in advance in Britain. The C32 simply did not show up in flight tracker data at all, at least in the publicly available information we had.

And the Air Force One jet landed with the Air Force One call sign despite the president not being aboard. There's a serious shell game of sorts that occurred there, you know, to keep the president safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Palestinians displaced by the war and desperate to return and rebuild their homes. They are reacting to Israel's rejection of the U.S. backed peace plan for Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voiceover): We are used to these statements and I'm not surprised by them. We had a fake ceasefire in the last period of time. The goal was to whitewash the face of the occupation. But our suffering increased the search for food, increased the search for water, for tents.

We are used to the statements of this man and don't believe in them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voiceover): I want to return to my home after four years. It has been very difficult. We were happy about the ceasefire. We felt relieved, and we were very pleased.

We heard there was going to be a withdrawal from Khan Younis. Then during the night, we were shocked by Netanyahu.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding the full disarmament of Hamas before any Israeli forces withdraw as part of the plan. Israeli forces currently occupy more than half of Gaza, and senior Israeli officials have signaled that they want to expand control.

Netanyahu also went on to say, quote, "As long as I'm prime minister, no Palestinian state will be established. Not in Gaza, not in the West Bank."

A Russian missile strike has damaged a children's hospital in Kyiv, and that left craters outside the facility. Ukrainian officials say that the patients and medical staff were taking shelter, and they did survive the attack uninjured. But the city of Zaporizhzhia was not so fortunate.

Officials there are saying that Russian strikes killed six people and wounded 19 others overnight. On Monday, another 13 people in Zaporizhzhia were injured, including a child.

And coming up on CNN newsroom, Russia says that Ukraine is launching new drone strikes in its territory. A live report from Moscow in a moment.

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[04:23:19]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. Russia says Ukraine has launched drone strikes on more Wild Berries warehouses overnight. Kyiv is accusing the -- has accused the Russian e-commerce giant of providing military gear for soldiers. CNN's Fred Pleitgen joining me now from Moscow.

Fred, good morning to you. So what are you hearing from your sources?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Polo. Well, this really seems to be part of a larger strategy on the part of the Ukrainians where, on the one hand they've hit a lot of critical infrastructure here in Russia, including oil, gas, and petrochemical facilities.

In fact, just yesterday they hit one of Russia's largest refineries, the Russian saying, also killing a lot of civilians. But this company, Wildberries, really also seems to be the focus of a lot of these Ukrainian strikes.

And on the one hand, you're absolutely right. The Ukrainians accused this company of supporting, as they put it, Russia's combat efforts because you can apparently buy some military goods like, for instance, tactical gloves on Wildberries and flak vests and the like.

However, one of the things that we also have to keep in mind is that Wildberries is a very large company here in Russia and that a lot of small Russian businesses also depend on companies like Wildberries for e commerce, for online sales. It's a big thing here in this country. And so a lot of small businesses are being hurt by this.

The Russians obviously know that all this is going on. They do acknowledge that this has had an effect. And it seems as though what they're doing in return is they're striking Ukrainian infrastructure facilities.

One of the things that we've been sort of taking note of in the past couple of days is a marked increase in Russian drone and missile strikes, not just at Ukrainian towns and cities, but also at logistics infrastructure, for instance, rail links, boats, ships, for instance on the Black Sea, but then also other warehouses, for instance, in Kyiv, one that they struck tonight. So that seems to be the Russian reaction.

And one thing that we also took note of as well, Polo, which I think was really interesting, is that Vladimir Putin actually, late last week he for the first time, appointed a head of drone warfare for the Russian military. So, it certainly seems as though the Russians have identified that the Ukrainians have been quite effective with a lot of these strikes.

[04:25:20]

And the Russians now apparently, at least from what we're seeing, seem to be wanting to give the Ukrainians, as they would put it, so some of their own medicine with the Russians really increasing their long distance strikes over the past couple of days and weeks.

SANDOVAL: That's CNN's Fred Pleitgen with that live report from Moscow and following that latest wave of strikes against that e-commerce trend. Thank you, Fred.

Meantime, Russia's Supreme Court banning the only antiwar opposition party from running in next year's parliamentary elections. Yabloko is the is only, is the only officially registered party that objects to President Putin's so called special military operation in Ukraine.

Its members have called for Russia to sign a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine. That's something that the Kremlin has ruled out. The top Russian court's ruling favored a small pro-Kremlin nationalist party which accused Yabloko of taking foreign campaign donations. That party's leader denies those allegations.

He says it's merely an effort to silence opposition and criticism against the current government. The party supporters gathered outside the courtroom, saying they will not give up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YEVGENIYA, YABLOKO SUPPORTER (voiceover): We think it is essential we show that there are lots of us that we are united in our support for this party because all we want peace, and we want brighter future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And still much more on the way. Including parts of Europe that are bracing for yet another wave of extremely high temperatures this week. In some places it will be the fifth heat wave that they've seen this summer. We'll be right back.

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