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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Destruction in New York City Unprecedented

Aired September 19, 2001 - 08:30   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now I wanted to introduce you to Alessio Vinci. He is one of our CNN employees, our Rome bureau chief, who is a man who has seen lots of devastation all over the world, in the Balkans, in Kosovo, in Chechnya. You came to ground zero on Tuesday...

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wednesday morning. We drove. I was in Atlanta. We drove overnight to come as soon as we heard there was an explosion.

ZAHN: What did you see?

VINCI: It was a huge devastation, Paula. And comparing this to many other destructions we've seen in the past, you knew that there was a lot of destruction, and a lot of dead people, human beings, in the destruction in Yugoslavia, in the destruction during the bombing campaign. A lot of the buildings that were hit during the NATO-led bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, the buildings that were hit were empty. They were empty. And here, you arrive there, it was dark, it was smelly, and you could see the -- you could smell there was death in the air, and most of the destruction in the Balkans, especially during the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia was destruction of structural destruction. There was not such a high number of casualties.

Another example, Paula, just to make a comparison here. In Srebrenica, one of the worst crimes in Bosnia, 7,000 people died -- 7,000 -- and that took a long period of time. In New York City in, what, two minutes maybe, we are already up to 5,000 missing, presumed dead. So this is the kind of number we're talking about, it's really incredible if you think about it.

ZAHN: And we need to explain that the pictures you continue to see, whether it's the aerials or the wide shots you've seen that Bill has shared with us this morning, they don't really give you a perspective of the devastation. I know Cathy Oherna (ph), a producer you've worked with a lot, and I got into the area Sunday, and we actually got into an area that very few journalists have been able to get into. And it's so much worse than you expect, especially what you see the impact of the heat and the jet fuel. Buildings, faces, in the adjoining are just seared.

VINCI: I don't have to tell you New York is a unique city. I don't think there is anything in the world two towers standing like that collapsing, and two planes crashing into it. I don't think you can compare this to anything. During the bombing campaign in Belgrade, remember there was one sky skyscraper that was housing the headquarters of the Socialist Party. That building was hit by three cruise missile. It's still standing. It was empty. It's hit and still standing. And the explosion was massive. We were standing at a hotel 300 yards away. The noise was incredible, but it's still standing, and the two collapsing building were huge, and the amount of destruction again, as I said, it is also a question of just the speed how this happened. I was talking to somebody in the area during the first attack. I think nobody realized buildings were coming down. A lot of people went in there because they wanted to look at what was happening, and I think that could have -- certainly has raised a number of casualties there.

ZAHN: And in some cases, family members who we interviewed who are missing people said they heard as their loved ones were making phone calls to them, saying stay there, you will be OK, and of course, they got trapped in a towering inferno?

VINCI: Absolutely. I was told one of the evacuation procedures of the World Trade Center is go to the roof, you will be evacuated by helicopter. But of course, there was all that fire and the helicopters could not reach them.

And you know, Paula, one more thing I wanted to mention is hearing Bill talk about the possibility of the lack of chance of finding any survivors. In 1998, during the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya, after two weeks, they found a woman alive. We were there and remember, her name is Rosa. They pulled her out alive.

ZAHN: That's why those rescue workers are working as hard as they are.

Alessio, thank you so much.

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