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Overall Tsunami Death Toll at 80,000

Aired December 29, 2004 - 13:33   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: These are fresh pictures just in to the CNN Center as we cover this car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, right around the corner from the Ministry of the Interior. CNN is now reporting that there were two blasts from this car bomb. There have been injuries. We are tracking the story very closely out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And now the latest on the aftermath of Sunday's tsunamis. Death tolls across the stricken region continue to rise, exponentially.

Area photos now of the ravaged island of Phuket, Thailand. Officials report that for every native Thai killed in the disaster, two tourists have also died. The overall death toll in the region now stands at more than 80,000, including 10,000 in India, more than 23,000 in Sri Lanka, more than 1,800 in Thailand, and a staggering 45,000-plus victims, all across Indonesia.

The first international aid convoys began arriving today in Sri Lanka, bringing drinking water and other supplies. Across Sri Lanka, some 1.5 million people forced to leave their homes. And over 745,000 no longer even have homes. Eyewitnesses say virtually every structure along the southern coast, damaged or just simply swept away by the massive waves.

LIN: And now those very same areas have to brace for waves of disease expected to hit the survivors. CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Gupta is in the devastated island nation of Sri Lanka, where the prognosis is, indeed, very grim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The biggest goal here in Sri Lanka is to ensure those who survived the tsunami stay living. Health officials warning tonight that as many people may die from disease in these tsunami devastated areas as die from the actual tsunami itself. And from what have seen here on the ground in Sri Lanka, we'd have to agree.

You see the public health system here struggles in the best of times, now, it seems practically non-existent; makeshift morgues, burial sites, often overflowing with the gruesome sight of decomposing bodies. Hospitals without reliable electricity, running water or communications systems now treating everything from broken bones and infections to dehydration and heat stroke.

But it is an epidemic of infectious diseases that worries doctors here most. It is the water supply that now poses the biggest danger to those who survive the killer waves of water that swept ashore here Sunday. Water and food contaminated by human waste and salt water from the sea can lead to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which can be fatal.

Standing water from the flooding can attract mosquitoes, spawning outbreaks of malaria and Dengue fever. Those left homeless, those trying to survive on the streets also face the threat of respiratory illness from bacteria and viruses that quickly spread when unsanitary conditions exist.

Relief efforts now focus on water purification systems and distribution of bottled water being flown in by aide groups. Quick burial of bodies and clean up of sewage and debris. The providing of safe and sanitary shelter to those who have been left homeless, as well as clean temporary medical clinics to treat the sick as well as the injured.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Well, beyond the physical health crisis for survivors, their mental health is also at risk. A World Health Organization spokesman says tremendous mental scarring often results from disasters like this one, and that is especially true for children, who may have lost family members or friends -- in fact, their whole way of life.

Dr. Robert Pynoos joins me now from Los Angeles. He's a professor at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine and director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Good to have you, Doctor. You have worked with children and studied children who have experienced trauma in major earthquakes, in Turkey, Armenia. You've worked with children of war in Bosnia. How does this disaster compare?

DR. ROBERT PYNOOS, CHILD TRAUMA EXPERT: First, let me just say, as co-director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, our hearts go out to the families and communities and nations most affected by this horrible tragedy.

This is obviously a disaster of almost unparalleled proportion, with almost 100,000 now considered dead. And with a large population of children who have died within this disaster as well. It's so not only a tragedy for the children who have survived, lost parents or family members, for those parents who have lost their children. And we've learned that this can take quite a heavy toll.

The first thing is your last report about providing good help afterwards for all the adversities and the safety and medicine and clean water is really a mental health intervention to help with the adversities.

The combination of what we call, trauma and traumatic grief, that is, that so many children and family members have not only gone through the life threat of the tsunami themselves, but at the same time witnessed the death or loss of a family member. That the two of those are extraordinarily hard on young children.

LIN: Right, because ...

PYNOOS: The resources to deal ...

LIN: Doctor, let me focus this on what you're saying here. Because what you are saying, on the hand, aid organizations, their priority is to keep these children, or help these children feel safe and protected by providing shelter, protecting them from the onslaught of pending disease in this situation. But how do you make a child feel safe when they have witnessed something that is incomprehensible?

PYNOOS: Well, we know they're going to have the kind of -- what are called post-traumatic reactions. We know even young children can have them, not just adults and school-age ...

LIN: How young?

PYNOOS: We now know that from zero to five, we can study the changes in their reactions to trauma, and they can be quite profound. And at the same, so they may react to reminders, with quite -- you know, water, any changes outside -- they're going to have these traumatic reactions that are quite serious, and biological, as well as psychological.

At the same time, they'll have grief reactions. They're going to miss those family members they've lost. They're going to have times when they wish to see them again, to be with them, to be comforted with them ...

LIN: What do you say to these children? How do you explain what we ourselves are still trying to understand, how this could possibly happen?

PYNOOS: Well, that's a good question. They're going to have lots of questions about how it can be kept from happening again. Then they need to be calmed and helped, with anytime they are reminded of it, that it will happen again.

Our work in Armenia, where there was 50,000 deaths, where half the schools collapsed and half the children died, as well as family members, showed us that over time, as the structure comes back to provide the safety and security to these children, that you can actually work with them and provide good mental health assistance in a way that...

LIN: Give me specifics, Doctor Pynoos. What do you mean, give me specifics. When they're trying to find clean water and food for these people it seems that mental health, frankly, can be put on hold.

PYNOOS: The first is to provide some kind of psychological first aid. That is, to give some support to the children, to try to get them united if they can, with a family member with whom they're comfortable and feel at ease, to try and help them understand in their language and at their age, age appropriately what can be -- their questions they may have about it.

It's also to let them know over time you can help them with their reactions; that there are ways to help them with that.

LIN: Right.

PYNOOS: My point is that we should be starting now to prepare for the psychological aftereffects. And know that, like the World Health Organization sees as one of its first tools to help even with temporary schools that allow the children to be some place. It may seem hard right now.

LIN: Right.

PYNOOS: Where they can actually get care, they can actually be screened for their reactions and start to get some support.

LIN: Anything to give them a sense of normalcy, I think what it is.

PYNOOS: But not to feel too pessimistic about the future. In Armenia, we treated these children in four to six sessions five years later, we could see they were doing much better than the children who didn't receive those services.

LIN: Doctor Pynoos, yes it is of value to at least have somebody to talk to and acknowledge the frightening feelings these kids must be going through.

Thank you very much.

PYNOOS: You're welcome.

LIN: Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie between India and Indonesia, on the Bay of Bengal. Just a few days ago, the setting was paradise on earth, a popular tourist destination. The tiny pristine islands, were no match for what swept through on Sunday, of course. CNN's Suhasini Haidar reports from the Nicobar Islands where the earthquakes and aftershocks continue to rattle those who managed to survive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUHASINI HAIDAR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Days after the tsunami struck, Indian officials are still uncovering the damage and number of people killed in the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Indian Ocean.

Here, in the Island of Car Nicobar, one of the worst effected, the devastation is complete, and hundreds of survivors are now cuing up to get on evacuee planes out of here. People are telling horrifying stories of how they lost their loved one, their homes, and walked miles and miles through the forest for days without food before reaching here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There are entire families which have been wiped away. Children have been separated from their parents. There are dead bodies all over. We are more worried about the people who are in the forests and are injured, as relief hasn't reached them. I hope the government can do something for them.

HAIDAR (voice over): Now, the jetties around these islands have been destroyed as well. The only way of bringing relief in is to fly it in. Officials are telling us their pilots are working around the clock, each plane bringing in with it food, water and medicine and taking out as many survivors as they can.

Suhasini Haidar, CNN, Car Nicobar, in the Indian Ocean.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Of all the tens of thousands of lives lost, at least a third are believed to be children. Up next, the emotional scenes, as parents grieve the loss of young lives, while others search the streets, hoping against hope for a miracle.

And amid the destruction, a survival story to tell you about. One reporter's firsthand account as the waves struck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Consider the magnitude of this situation after that tsunami that relief organizations are estimating that a third of those killed in that tsunami were actually children. Hard to believe. I've even heard estimates as high as half of the number of people killed.

O'BRIEN: And you hear those terrible tales of parents who try to clutch on to their children and were unable to do so. Imagine that image being seared in your memory forever.

LIN: The last thing you see is your child's face.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my god, yeah. There are fears that the number of child deaths could go much, much higher. Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Their grief is nearly too much to bear. Parents whose precious children were suddenly pulled out to sea, or crushed by the oncoming water. Their young lives lost in the crash of a wave.

In Thailand and India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, desperate parents search for their children, on the streets and in the morgues, hoping, praying, their babies are still alive.

The images are haunting. A mother searches through lifeless bodies, looking for her child. A father carries the body of his dead child. Parents without children. Children without parents. This boy cries out for his mother, as she is laid to rest. According to UNICEF, one-third of the tens of thousands of lives lost in the tsunami are children. The littlest victims, too young to understand the wrath of nature, too small to escape the danger.

CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIR., UNICEF: Kids are the least able to run, the least able to hold -- they can run, but the least able to withstand the flooding or holding on. That's one of the reasons children particularly have been affected.

COOPER: UNICEF officials also point out that in the countries hardest hit by this disaster, where between one-third and one-half of population is under 18 year of age, children could account for up to half the death toll when the final figures are tallied. And while there's little risk of another deadly wave, the danger is far from over for these families; so many already torn apart by tragedy.

CHRISTOPHER GORDER, AMERICACARES: The larger task at hand will be keeping the survivors alive; millions of people who are displaced and vulnerable in these unsanitary conditions.

COOPER: The heat, exposed corpses, lack of clean food and water, could lead to epidemics of cholera and other diseases. That could double the number of child victims. The future swept away in a monumental disaster that may change the face of a continent for generations to come.

Anderson Cooper, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: We will have more on this next hour, when we talk to the director of emergency response for the Save the Children organization.

LIN: Also, we've received hundreds of e-mails from people seeking news of friends and relatives in areas affected by the tsunamis. And we've set up help on our web site. If you are looking for a loved one in that area, you can log on to CNN.com and find disaster hotlines from around the region. You can also send e-mails to tsunami@cnn.com.

One reporter actually became part of the story when the tsunami wave struck Thailand. Straight ahead he recalls the moment when he and his family were nearly washed away.

DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm David Haffenreffer at the New York Stock Exchange.

Teenage girls may have one less shopping destination at the mall. We'll have that story coming up on LIVE FROM. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, our business correspondent David Haffenreffer certainly gets our seal of approval. But if you're -- to tell you the truth, David, if you're thinking I care about this particular story, you're barking up the wrong tree.

HAFFENREFFER: Up the wrong tree.

O'BRIEN: No, no, I really do care deeply about Wet Seal. Actually, I haven't heard of them, until you mentioned them.

HAFFENREFFER: This is a big teen retailer, Miles. You'll get to know them, I guess.

O'BRIEN: I'm a demographic -- not a fit for them.

HAFFENREFFER: A demographic deficiency.

That's it! A deficiency, that would be a nice way of putting it, wouldn't it?

HAFFENREFFER: You will get to it eventually.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HAFFENREFFER: I would imagine.

But this youth-oriented retailer, Wet Seal, it's call, is closing more than a quarter of its stores and cutting 30 percent of its workforce, that is about 2000 jobs in total. The move is aimed at revving up its apparel and accessories business, which for two years has failed to catch the interest of teen girls. That's their primary demographic.

On Wall Street at this hour, the major averages are lower in light trading today. The Dow Jones industrial average, lower by 50 points, at 10,804. The Nasdaq composite index is just slightly lower. That is the latest from Wall Street.

Coming up, how about this for an offer, come to work over New Year's weekend and get paid absolutely nothing. We'll tell you which company is asking for volunteers in the next hour of LIVE FROM. Until then, Miles and Carol, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Me, me, me.

LIN: Absolutely nothing.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, David, appreciate it.

LIN: Getting back to our top story, imagine you're a tourist on one of those seashores in Asia and you're watching as this monstrous wave rushes towards you, and your children. You're trying to outrun it and then you feel it hit.

O'BRIEN: It is hard to imagine, isn't it? On vacation in Thailand, ITV Correspondent John Irvine, and his family, amazingly survived that terrifying experience. Here's his first person account.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN IRVINE, ITV REPORTER, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR (voice over): The children were playing on the beach when I came running down to find them and my wife, Libby. The sea off Ko Yao (ph) was a flat calm, but with one big exception. A 20-foot wave was coming in shore, very quickly indeed. Five-year-old Peter was staring at the wave, mesmerized. I lurched forward and grabbed him.

Obviously, with the wave pursuing us pretty rapidly, Peter and I were moving rather more quickly than we are this morning. My wife Libby and my daughter Elizabeth headed for our bungalow over there. But I knew for myself and the little fellow here, simply wouldn't make it.

We listened to the wave breaking on. There was a big bang as it came through those trees. I suppose we had reached about here, before we were washed away. We were then carried about 40 yards.

The wave carried us both through this little gap between these two bungalows. All the time, I was acutely aware of all the debris the wave picked up on its journey. Peter and I ended up down there, in this field. Here are some of the tree trunks and other bits of debris the wave carried with us. Fortunately, they missed us.

Afterwards, we find that my wife had gone through a similar experience. Only our daughter had made it to the bungalow. Which was, itself, swamped. Nine-year-old Elizabeth was tumbled around. The furniture and fittings were destroyed. But miraculously, she suffered only cuts and bruises.

Some of the buildings here were damaged structurally, so powerful was the tsunami. We lost pretty much all of our belongings. But we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate. As for this resort itself, the general manager is promising he'll be back in business within a fortnight.

John Irvine, ITV News, Ko Yao (ph), Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: That's amazing. Let's hope they get a refund.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I would think. I would think. But what a terrible story; we didn't see his wife. I'm going to guess she was shooting the pictures or something. Imagine that, that split second decision. Of course you don't have time to think of it. Where you have to break apart, as a family and have to wonder how the other two are doing.

LIN: That's exactly what thousands of people are going through now, still trying to track down their relatives.

O'BRIEN: Unable to find them. Yes.

Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, reunited, a young boy and his parents in Thailand. Wait until you hear his survival story. And countless children have lost parents in the disaster. What happens to them? We'll talk to a representative of Save the Children. LIVE FROM's second hour begins after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired December 29, 2004 - 13:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: These are fresh pictures just in to the CNN Center as we cover this car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, right around the corner from the Ministry of the Interior. CNN is now reporting that there were two blasts from this car bomb. There have been injuries. We are tracking the story very closely out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And now the latest on the aftermath of Sunday's tsunamis. Death tolls across the stricken region continue to rise, exponentially.

Area photos now of the ravaged island of Phuket, Thailand. Officials report that for every native Thai killed in the disaster, two tourists have also died. The overall death toll in the region now stands at more than 80,000, including 10,000 in India, more than 23,000 in Sri Lanka, more than 1,800 in Thailand, and a staggering 45,000-plus victims, all across Indonesia.

The first international aid convoys began arriving today in Sri Lanka, bringing drinking water and other supplies. Across Sri Lanka, some 1.5 million people forced to leave their homes. And over 745,000 no longer even have homes. Eyewitnesses say virtually every structure along the southern coast, damaged or just simply swept away by the massive waves.

LIN: And now those very same areas have to brace for waves of disease expected to hit the survivors. CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Gupta is in the devastated island nation of Sri Lanka, where the prognosis is, indeed, very grim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The biggest goal here in Sri Lanka is to ensure those who survived the tsunami stay living. Health officials warning tonight that as many people may die from disease in these tsunami devastated areas as die from the actual tsunami itself. And from what have seen here on the ground in Sri Lanka, we'd have to agree.

You see the public health system here struggles in the best of times, now, it seems practically non-existent; makeshift morgues, burial sites, often overflowing with the gruesome sight of decomposing bodies. Hospitals without reliable electricity, running water or communications systems now treating everything from broken bones and infections to dehydration and heat stroke.

But it is an epidemic of infectious diseases that worries doctors here most. It is the water supply that now poses the biggest danger to those who survive the killer waves of water that swept ashore here Sunday. Water and food contaminated by human waste and salt water from the sea can lead to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which can be fatal.

Standing water from the flooding can attract mosquitoes, spawning outbreaks of malaria and Dengue fever. Those left homeless, those trying to survive on the streets also face the threat of respiratory illness from bacteria and viruses that quickly spread when unsanitary conditions exist.

Relief efforts now focus on water purification systems and distribution of bottled water being flown in by aide groups. Quick burial of bodies and clean up of sewage and debris. The providing of safe and sanitary shelter to those who have been left homeless, as well as clean temporary medical clinics to treat the sick as well as the injured.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Well, beyond the physical health crisis for survivors, their mental health is also at risk. A World Health Organization spokesman says tremendous mental scarring often results from disasters like this one, and that is especially true for children, who may have lost family members or friends -- in fact, their whole way of life.

Dr. Robert Pynoos joins me now from Los Angeles. He's a professor at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine and director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Good to have you, Doctor. You have worked with children and studied children who have experienced trauma in major earthquakes, in Turkey, Armenia. You've worked with children of war in Bosnia. How does this disaster compare?

DR. ROBERT PYNOOS, CHILD TRAUMA EXPERT: First, let me just say, as co-director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, our hearts go out to the families and communities and nations most affected by this horrible tragedy.

This is obviously a disaster of almost unparalleled proportion, with almost 100,000 now considered dead. And with a large population of children who have died within this disaster as well. It's so not only a tragedy for the children who have survived, lost parents or family members, for those parents who have lost their children. And we've learned that this can take quite a heavy toll.

The first thing is your last report about providing good help afterwards for all the adversities and the safety and medicine and clean water is really a mental health intervention to help with the adversities.

The combination of what we call, trauma and traumatic grief, that is, that so many children and family members have not only gone through the life threat of the tsunami themselves, but at the same time witnessed the death or loss of a family member. That the two of those are extraordinarily hard on young children.

LIN: Right, because ...

PYNOOS: The resources to deal ...

LIN: Doctor, let me focus this on what you're saying here. Because what you are saying, on the hand, aid organizations, their priority is to keep these children, or help these children feel safe and protected by providing shelter, protecting them from the onslaught of pending disease in this situation. But how do you make a child feel safe when they have witnessed something that is incomprehensible?

PYNOOS: Well, we know they're going to have the kind of -- what are called post-traumatic reactions. We know even young children can have them, not just adults and school-age ...

LIN: How young?

PYNOOS: We now know that from zero to five, we can study the changes in their reactions to trauma, and they can be quite profound. And at the same, so they may react to reminders, with quite -- you know, water, any changes outside -- they're going to have these traumatic reactions that are quite serious, and biological, as well as psychological.

At the same time, they'll have grief reactions. They're going to miss those family members they've lost. They're going to have times when they wish to see them again, to be with them, to be comforted with them ...

LIN: What do you say to these children? How do you explain what we ourselves are still trying to understand, how this could possibly happen?

PYNOOS: Well, that's a good question. They're going to have lots of questions about how it can be kept from happening again. Then they need to be calmed and helped, with anytime they are reminded of it, that it will happen again.

Our work in Armenia, where there was 50,000 deaths, where half the schools collapsed and half the children died, as well as family members, showed us that over time, as the structure comes back to provide the safety and security to these children, that you can actually work with them and provide good mental health assistance in a way that...

LIN: Give me specifics, Doctor Pynoos. What do you mean, give me specifics. When they're trying to find clean water and food for these people it seems that mental health, frankly, can be put on hold.

PYNOOS: The first is to provide some kind of psychological first aid. That is, to give some support to the children, to try to get them united if they can, with a family member with whom they're comfortable and feel at ease, to try and help them understand in their language and at their age, age appropriately what can be -- their questions they may have about it.

It's also to let them know over time you can help them with their reactions; that there are ways to help them with that.

LIN: Right.

PYNOOS: My point is that we should be starting now to prepare for the psychological aftereffects. And know that, like the World Health Organization sees as one of its first tools to help even with temporary schools that allow the children to be some place. It may seem hard right now.

LIN: Right.

PYNOOS: Where they can actually get care, they can actually be screened for their reactions and start to get some support.

LIN: Anything to give them a sense of normalcy, I think what it is.

PYNOOS: But not to feel too pessimistic about the future. In Armenia, we treated these children in four to six sessions five years later, we could see they were doing much better than the children who didn't receive those services.

LIN: Doctor Pynoos, yes it is of value to at least have somebody to talk to and acknowledge the frightening feelings these kids must be going through.

Thank you very much.

PYNOOS: You're welcome.

LIN: Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie between India and Indonesia, on the Bay of Bengal. Just a few days ago, the setting was paradise on earth, a popular tourist destination. The tiny pristine islands, were no match for what swept through on Sunday, of course. CNN's Suhasini Haidar reports from the Nicobar Islands where the earthquakes and aftershocks continue to rattle those who managed to survive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUHASINI HAIDAR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Days after the tsunami struck, Indian officials are still uncovering the damage and number of people killed in the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Indian Ocean.

Here, in the Island of Car Nicobar, one of the worst effected, the devastation is complete, and hundreds of survivors are now cuing up to get on evacuee planes out of here. People are telling horrifying stories of how they lost their loved one, their homes, and walked miles and miles through the forest for days without food before reaching here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There are entire families which have been wiped away. Children have been separated from their parents. There are dead bodies all over. We are more worried about the people who are in the forests and are injured, as relief hasn't reached them. I hope the government can do something for them.

HAIDAR (voice over): Now, the jetties around these islands have been destroyed as well. The only way of bringing relief in is to fly it in. Officials are telling us their pilots are working around the clock, each plane bringing in with it food, water and medicine and taking out as many survivors as they can.

Suhasini Haidar, CNN, Car Nicobar, in the Indian Ocean.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Of all the tens of thousands of lives lost, at least a third are believed to be children. Up next, the emotional scenes, as parents grieve the loss of young lives, while others search the streets, hoping against hope for a miracle.

And amid the destruction, a survival story to tell you about. One reporter's firsthand account as the waves struck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Consider the magnitude of this situation after that tsunami that relief organizations are estimating that a third of those killed in that tsunami were actually children. Hard to believe. I've even heard estimates as high as half of the number of people killed.

O'BRIEN: And you hear those terrible tales of parents who try to clutch on to their children and were unable to do so. Imagine that image being seared in your memory forever.

LIN: The last thing you see is your child's face.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my god, yeah. There are fears that the number of child deaths could go much, much higher. Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Their grief is nearly too much to bear. Parents whose precious children were suddenly pulled out to sea, or crushed by the oncoming water. Their young lives lost in the crash of a wave.

In Thailand and India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, desperate parents search for their children, on the streets and in the morgues, hoping, praying, their babies are still alive.

The images are haunting. A mother searches through lifeless bodies, looking for her child. A father carries the body of his dead child. Parents without children. Children without parents. This boy cries out for his mother, as she is laid to rest. According to UNICEF, one-third of the tens of thousands of lives lost in the tsunami are children. The littlest victims, too young to understand the wrath of nature, too small to escape the danger.

CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIR., UNICEF: Kids are the least able to run, the least able to hold -- they can run, but the least able to withstand the flooding or holding on. That's one of the reasons children particularly have been affected.

COOPER: UNICEF officials also point out that in the countries hardest hit by this disaster, where between one-third and one-half of population is under 18 year of age, children could account for up to half the death toll when the final figures are tallied. And while there's little risk of another deadly wave, the danger is far from over for these families; so many already torn apart by tragedy.

CHRISTOPHER GORDER, AMERICACARES: The larger task at hand will be keeping the survivors alive; millions of people who are displaced and vulnerable in these unsanitary conditions.

COOPER: The heat, exposed corpses, lack of clean food and water, could lead to epidemics of cholera and other diseases. That could double the number of child victims. The future swept away in a monumental disaster that may change the face of a continent for generations to come.

Anderson Cooper, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: We will have more on this next hour, when we talk to the director of emergency response for the Save the Children organization.

LIN: Also, we've received hundreds of e-mails from people seeking news of friends and relatives in areas affected by the tsunamis. And we've set up help on our web site. If you are looking for a loved one in that area, you can log on to CNN.com and find disaster hotlines from around the region. You can also send e-mails to tsunami@cnn.com.

One reporter actually became part of the story when the tsunami wave struck Thailand. Straight ahead he recalls the moment when he and his family were nearly washed away.

DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm David Haffenreffer at the New York Stock Exchange.

Teenage girls may have one less shopping destination at the mall. We'll have that story coming up on LIVE FROM. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, our business correspondent David Haffenreffer certainly gets our seal of approval. But if you're -- to tell you the truth, David, if you're thinking I care about this particular story, you're barking up the wrong tree.

HAFFENREFFER: Up the wrong tree.

O'BRIEN: No, no, I really do care deeply about Wet Seal. Actually, I haven't heard of them, until you mentioned them.

HAFFENREFFER: This is a big teen retailer, Miles. You'll get to know them, I guess.

O'BRIEN: I'm a demographic -- not a fit for them.

HAFFENREFFER: A demographic deficiency.

That's it! A deficiency, that would be a nice way of putting it, wouldn't it?

HAFFENREFFER: You will get to it eventually.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HAFFENREFFER: I would imagine.

But this youth-oriented retailer, Wet Seal, it's call, is closing more than a quarter of its stores and cutting 30 percent of its workforce, that is about 2000 jobs in total. The move is aimed at revving up its apparel and accessories business, which for two years has failed to catch the interest of teen girls. That's their primary demographic.

On Wall Street at this hour, the major averages are lower in light trading today. The Dow Jones industrial average, lower by 50 points, at 10,804. The Nasdaq composite index is just slightly lower. That is the latest from Wall Street.

Coming up, how about this for an offer, come to work over New Year's weekend and get paid absolutely nothing. We'll tell you which company is asking for volunteers in the next hour of LIVE FROM. Until then, Miles and Carol, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Me, me, me.

LIN: Absolutely nothing.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, David, appreciate it.

LIN: Getting back to our top story, imagine you're a tourist on one of those seashores in Asia and you're watching as this monstrous wave rushes towards you, and your children. You're trying to outrun it and then you feel it hit.

O'BRIEN: It is hard to imagine, isn't it? On vacation in Thailand, ITV Correspondent John Irvine, and his family, amazingly survived that terrifying experience. Here's his first person account.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN IRVINE, ITV REPORTER, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR (voice over): The children were playing on the beach when I came running down to find them and my wife, Libby. The sea off Ko Yao (ph) was a flat calm, but with one big exception. A 20-foot wave was coming in shore, very quickly indeed. Five-year-old Peter was staring at the wave, mesmerized. I lurched forward and grabbed him.

Obviously, with the wave pursuing us pretty rapidly, Peter and I were moving rather more quickly than we are this morning. My wife Libby and my daughter Elizabeth headed for our bungalow over there. But I knew for myself and the little fellow here, simply wouldn't make it.

We listened to the wave breaking on. There was a big bang as it came through those trees. I suppose we had reached about here, before we were washed away. We were then carried about 40 yards.

The wave carried us both through this little gap between these two bungalows. All the time, I was acutely aware of all the debris the wave picked up on its journey. Peter and I ended up down there, in this field. Here are some of the tree trunks and other bits of debris the wave carried with us. Fortunately, they missed us.

Afterwards, we find that my wife had gone through a similar experience. Only our daughter had made it to the bungalow. Which was, itself, swamped. Nine-year-old Elizabeth was tumbled around. The furniture and fittings were destroyed. But miraculously, she suffered only cuts and bruises.

Some of the buildings here were damaged structurally, so powerful was the tsunami. We lost pretty much all of our belongings. But we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate. As for this resort itself, the general manager is promising he'll be back in business within a fortnight.

John Irvine, ITV News, Ko Yao (ph), Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: That's amazing. Let's hope they get a refund.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I would think. I would think. But what a terrible story; we didn't see his wife. I'm going to guess she was shooting the pictures or something. Imagine that, that split second decision. Of course you don't have time to think of it. Where you have to break apart, as a family and have to wonder how the other two are doing.

LIN: That's exactly what thousands of people are going through now, still trying to track down their relatives.

O'BRIEN: Unable to find them. Yes.

Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, reunited, a young boy and his parents in Thailand. Wait until you hear his survival story. And countless children have lost parents in the disaster. What happens to them? We'll talk to a representative of Save the Children. LIVE FROM's second hour begins after this.

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