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CNN Live Today

Tsunami Death Toll Increases to 33,000

Aired December 28, 2004 - 10:00   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CO-ANCHOR: Well, sadly that is all from us here on "AMERICAN MORNING." Daryn Kagan is standing by at the CNN Center to take us through the next few hours on CNN LIVE TODAY.
Daryn, good morning to you.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Good morning to you in New York City. You guys have a great day. A lot to get to so we are going to get started right now. Let's take a look first at what's happening now in the news.

Asia's tsunami death toll climbs to staggering proportions. The latest numbers, more than 33,000 dead, more than half of those in Sri Lanka. But thousands more could be dead in Indonesia near where the record earthquake hit. Communications are still cut off to that area.

Aid is coming in from around the world to survivors. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.S. is not stingy when it comes to helping countries in need. Powell is responding to a U.N. official criticizing rich nations for not being generous enough.

And there's a new audiotape said to be from Osama bin Laden. The al Qaeda leader calls on Iraqis to boycott next month's election. Bin Laden also welcomes Abu Musab al Zarqawi to his terror group. He calls al Zarqawi, "The Prince of al Qaeda in Iraq."

And good morning to you, I'm Daryn Kagan. As you just saw Rick Sanchez working out of New York this week. We begin with the deepening crisis and the spiraling death toll of the world's deadliest tsunami in 120 years. And one measure of the disaster, the numbers they are so large they're absolutely staggering.

But it is the smaller stories. The personal accounts of loss and survival that are heart wrenching. And those are what we are bringing to you this morning. We have our CNN reporters fanned out across the region. We're going to start with Mike Chinoy in the Aceh Province of Indonesia, the area closest to the epicenter of the earthquake -- Mike.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn. Well, I'm in Banda Aceh, which is a major town closest to the epicenter of the quake, just 100 miles away. This has been a city that has been devastated both by the quake and by the tsunami that followed. And all around the city, there are bodies littering the streets. A short while ago, I went to a field where local officials have been digging a mass grave. There were about 1,000 bodies piled up there. Many of them bloated in the tropical sun, their hands and feet sticking out at grotesque angles, as bulldozers simply shoveled those bodies into a big pit, covered them over with dirt. There's a lot of concern that the decomposing bodies could spread disease.

While I was there I met a young woman. She was weeping. She said that she'd lost four of her children and her husband. They had disappeared in the waves. She'd found the body of her 3-year-old and had brought it to this mass grave. And she stood with tears pouring down her cheeks, watching as the bulldozers shoveled the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) body in with the thousand others and shoveled the dirt on top. A horrifying scene -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mike, you were talking about the combination, especially in this area, the combination of the damage from the earthquake and the flooding of the tsunami. Which is going to be the greater challenge for this region to recover from?

CHINOY: Well, I mean it's all together. The quake and the tsunami have devastated communications. Roads have been cut. Phone communication is out. There's a whole stretch on this part of Indonesia of Aceh, along the western coast, closest to the epicenter where we simply had no information. It's an area where hundreds of thousands of people live along the seacoast. And nobody has gotten there. We do not know what has happened to these people.

Here in Banda Aceh, the basic services are ground to a halt. There are desperate shortages of medicine. Electrical power is very erratic. People are running out of fuel. There's not enough water. And the relief agencies that the Indonesian government is organizing is taking time to get together because this is such a remote part of the country and because the logistics are so complicated. So here people are really in a bad way right now -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mike Chinoy with the latest from Banda Aceh in Indonesia. Thank you.

Well, there is one mystery from the tsunami story that has been solved. A young boy who was rescued in Thailand has been reunited with a family member. A couple found the toddler face down in the mud after a wave receded. They took the young boy to a hospital where his story was picked up by a local newspaper.

Within one hour, his picture being posted online, he was identified by a relative back in Finland. Twenty-month-old Hans Bergstrom of Sweden was reunited with his grandmother today. The boy's father and grandfather are in another Thai hospital. His mother, however, is still missing.

Many of the posh seaside resorts that were in the path of the tsunamis catered not only to the rich but to the famous. Let's take a look at some of the names that are popping up. Chinese martial artist star Jet Lee was vacationing in the Maldives along with his wife and his 4-year-old daughter. All of them escaped. Lee injured his foot on a floating piece of furniture when floodwaters swamped their hotel. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Ingram Stenmark was on a beach in Thailand, just about 30 miles from Phuket, watching the tsunami waves charge toward shore. The skier, his girlfriend and father were washed to the town's center where they managed to swim to a ledge. All three of them are OK.

And one chilling tsunami survivor story comes from supermodel Petra Nemcova. You see her here on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" 2003 the swimsuit issue. Nemcova tells the "New York Daily News" she clung to the top of a palm tree for eight agonizing hours in Thailand, as bodies rushed past her in the raging water. And she watched as her boyfriend was swept out to sea. She suffered a broken pelvis and other injuries.

The tsunami struck at the height of tourist season, and many are now stranded in a strange land, clinging only to their harrowing escapes. Here now, some of the ordeals in their own words.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were absolutely certain that we were going to die. Then we found a safe place up in the mountains.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a terrible roaring noise. And we looked through the glass doors and this torrent of muddy water just came down the steps and through the doors. And washed me away into the playroom. And the glass doors were smashed by the water and I just couldn't keep my footing. I was very frightened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just one long wave across the horizon. And it looked like smog from a distance. And as it headed from -- it sort of swept the whole road and along the beach, flooded it completely and took trees out. As it came it took my motorbikes out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all we heard was this mighty bang, and the next thing the place was flooded. It was up to there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it hit, there was absolutely complete devastation. After the swell went back out and it took with it cars and buses, unfortunately many tourists that were on the beach, there were people running, asking if they had seen someone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was absolutely no warning. I was asleep in a beachfront cottage. I heard a loud noise. All of a sudden the roof was ripped off the cottage, and my friend and I were taken out to sea. And just taking in currents that were so strong with debris and cars, and animals, and people tearing by. We were able to hang onto a telephone pole where a mattress wedged between us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Panic. People trying to get up from the first floor because it was happening so quickly. People running from the seaside. And people getting caught up in the water. So there was a fear, general fear because no one had seen it.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAGAN: And now a conversation for you, a conversation with another survivor, Michael Elliot, a columnist and editor at large for "Time" magazine, a sister publication of us here at CNN. He was vacationing in Phuket Island, Thailand when the tsunami struck. He is now in Hong Kong where he joins us live.

Michael, good to see you alive and well.

MICHAEL ELLIOT, EDITOR AT LARGE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yes. I was never in any danger I have to say. I was 300 yards or so from the beach when the wave struck. One of the extraordinary things about this whole event is that if you were just a few hundred yards back from the sea front, you hardly even knew it had happened. The dividing line between devastation and safety was like etched with a knife. It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen.

KAGAN: And so how did word spread then that something terrible had actually happened?

ELLIOT: Kids kept running -- came running off the beach. I was on a golf course just a few hundred yards back. The kids who were very, very upset came running off the beach saying that something terrible had happened. And people kind of went down to see what it was. I made sure that my family was safe and then I went down to the beach, where you could see the whole devastation in front of you.

KAGAN: And as I understand it, a lot of people did that on these places all around the world. And that was one of the problems. Because people would go down to see the first wave, and then many of those then hit by another wave?

ELLIOT: Well, I think that's speculation at the moment quite honestly. Certainly in Phuket, where I was I hadn't had stories like that. Because, what happened, and this has been said a number of times now, is that all the water was sucked out to sea, 200, 300 yards. And that kind of gave everyone a sense that something very, very weird was happening.

If you spoke to people who were on the beach, I mean they tell you that fish had been left stranded, and were trying to hop from rock pool to rock pool. Then waves started coming in and most of the people that I spoke to who were actually on beaches realized quite quickly that something very odd was happening and tried to kind of grab their belongings and head for higher ground.

The beach that my hotel was on luckily was actually kind of protected by something like an eight-foot high, tiny little sand ridge, which actually protected it pretty well.

KAGAN: And then when you did go down and see the devastation, is it possible even to describe what you saw?

ELLIOT: Well, it was -- it was exactly as people have said in the last two days. Anything flimsy, and of course, a lot of the native houses, to say nothing of kind of beach bars, and souvenir stores, and dive shops and so on. Anything flimsy that was made of bamboo or corrugated iron was just reduced to matchsticks. Palm trees snapped off at the ground. Telegraph cables down, what have you.

More substantial buildings in Phuket, more modern hotels, bore the brunt of the water much better than the houses of the local people. They were the things that absolutely really got hammered. But cars had been tossed hundreds of yards inland. Boats, I saw one boat, which I think was 350, 400 yards inland sitting on top of a couple of cars, actually. And cars had been kind of thrown through the air, smashed in to shops.

I think some of the injuries and deaths were not just on the beaches, but in towns and villages, because an awful lot of very heavy material, concrete and cars, were just kind of being tossed around like ping pong balls.

KAGAN: As we said you're in Phuket. Now you're in Hong Kong. Something that I think a lot of tourists who went there for a winter holiday were hoping to do to get out. How difficult is it to get out at this point?

ELLIOT: Well, I got out yesterday from Phuket. I got out on a scheduled flight. Flights had stopped from Phuket for about 24 hours. Then they started again. And I managed to get out with my family OK to Singapore, and then on to Hong Kong.

Phuket, of course, was very, very badly hit. And I think it's now plain that hundreds of people died in that region of Thailand, not just in Phuket. But the report that you just had from Mike Chinoy is where we should really be focusing our attention now. Because the fact of the matter is that we haven't really had an accurate count from the areas of Indonesia that were actually closest to the epicenter of the quake. In other words, Sumatra and in particular the northern tip of Sumatra, Aceh.

And as Mike in that very gripping report just indicated, when we do get accurate numbers from Sumatra, the figures that you have seen in American newspapers this morning are going to look way, way, way out of date.

KAGAN: Mm.

ELLIOT: We've not yet got anything like an accurate count of casualties in Indonesia. I think we've even hardly started to hear any numbers yet from Indian Ocean islands, like the Nicobars and the Andamans, which must have been absolutely hammered.

KAGAN: Well, as you said at this point it's impossible to even get in there. But as soon as we are able, you know, CNN will be among the first to get there.

Michael Elliot, I'm glad you're OK and thanks for sharing your story and your firsthand account.

ELLIOT: OK.

KAGAN: Thank you. Well, it is an island paradise that is now lost. The tsunamis devastated the 1,200 small islands that make up the Maldives. We're going to show you the before and the after. We're going to do that in the next hour of CNN LIVE TODAY.

But first we have more this hour on the tsunami aftermath. Coming up next, it was a bittersweet e-mail. One mother receives word from her daughter in Thailand. Now, with the desperate plea to hear from her daughter again, she's going to talk to us live.

Plus, some buildings are made with the toughest metal. But can they survive the crashing waves of a tsunami? We're going to explore the possibilities.

TED ROWLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ted Rowlands near Santa Barbara, California, where medical supplies are being assembled for relief efforts to help those affected by the tsunami. We'll have a full report coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Well, CNN has been receiving e-mails describing the horror of the tsunami. Now I have just one of the many to share with you from some of the people writing in to cnn.com.

Writing, "I witnessed the most horrible scene in my life: people running for their lives, dead bodies on the road, mothers crying. I've never seen anything like this in my life. Entire fishing villages have been wiped out, huge cars floating. The bodies of children no older than seven are lying on the beach." And that e-mail coming in to us from India.

If you have a tsunami story you'd like to tell, please e-mail us at cnn.com.

E-mail, it turns out, plays a key part in our next interview. Christiana Savino was rock climbing in Thailand when the tsunami hit. She survived. She sent news to her mother in an e-mail. But Jill Savino has not heard from her daughter. She desperately still wants to reach her, understandably. Jill Savino joining us from Denver.

Jill, good morning.

JILL SAVINO, MOTHER OF TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Good morning.

KAGAN: Thank you for being here with us. Tell us about your daughter, Christiane and what she is doing in Thailand, and how she ended up rock climbing on this beach.

SAVINO: She's teaching English at a private school in Thailand, south of Bangkok. It is their Christmas vacation. And after they gave a very nice little Christmas program, she's a kindergarten teacher, they -- she and her boyfriend, who's also teaching in that school, went down to Krabi, K-R-A-B-I, and to go to the beach and have a wonderful vacation.

KAGAN: I mean it sounds like paradise. Like the exact experience you would like your daughter to have.

SAVINO: Yes. She's told me it's beautiful.

KAGAN: Yes. Absolutely.

Now when did you first get word? I'm interested in your story as a mother. When did you first get word that something terrible had happened in this part of the world?

SAVINO: We heard that something had happened in that part of the world. However, we knew that there had been an earthquake the day before, and so we didn't think that she would be involved. We thought it was in Antarctica. When I got home that day, I got a telephone call from my best friend who lives in Hawaii, who had been watching CNN all day. And she was horrified.

And she said, you know, that's where Christiana is. That's where Christiana is. And so we started looking at our e-mail. And I could see that she was in the area that was hit. At that point, I was sort of unable to use the e-mail anymore. I was crying too hard.

KAGAN: Yes, I can imagine.

SAVINO: For about two or three hours before we finally got an e- mail from her.

KAGAN: What were those two to three hours like?

SAVINO: Well, I went through several, about a box of Kleenex.

(LAUGHTER)

KAGAN: Hmm-mm. Yes. Now you have the e-mail that you have received from Christiane.

SAVINO: I do.

KAGAN: If you can share at least the first part of it. Because I'm sure that was the hugest relief for you and your family.

SAVINO: The subject is: "I Am Safe."

KAGAN: Yes. Well...

SAVINO: That was a good thing.

KAGAN: ... that's what you needed to hear.

SAVINO: And she says, "Aloha, Mom. I just wanted to let everybody know I am safe and well. I am down in the south of the Andaman Sea where the tsunamis are. It has been terrible and very frightening.

Yesterday, I was rock climbing right over the water and was trapped on the Railay Beach where the tidal waves hit both sides. The water came in so fast, we hardly knew what was going on. Everyone was struck from their ropes and climbing the walls, when suddenly everybody started running and screaming on the ground.

So we untied ourselves and ran towards higher ground. The waves hit three times from the west beach, and one big one from the east beach where I was. Luckily, everybody but a few made it to the top of this rock to safety where we stayed for several hours. Some were injured and only a few died, to my knowledge.

It's very terrible now, because it's right in the peak season, so the beaches are packed full of families. There are helicopters bringing injured people and search and rescue boats are everywhere. All of the shops near the beaches were flooded. It is very scary, because there's a very close island that's very beautiful near here. And it is now completely under water, and it was our plan to go there this afternoon. It's one of my favorite islands.

There are thousands and thousands of people that are missing and supposedly all of the land is gone. All I can hear is ambulances. It's disaster and everyone is in shock. I will keep in touch. For now I am safe and I send all of my love to you."

KAGAN: Well, it sounds like she has been through quite an ordeal. But she said it all in the subject line, she is safe.

SAVINO: "I Am Safe."

KAGAN: That was probably the best Christmas gift you could have received.

SAVINO: Yes.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

Well, we know you're still standing by the phone waiting to hear from her. We wish you luck with that. And I know you look forward to the next time you get to hug your daughter in person.

SAVINO: I do.

KAGAN: Thank you for sharing your story. I know it's been a difficult few days.

SAVINO: Thank you.

KAGAN: Jill Savino mother of Christiana Savino.

We're going to take a break, a lot more coverage coming up after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We have another relieved relative with us on the phone. Carl Farrington calling in from Portland, Oregon. His wife and sister-in-law were on vacation on an island of Poda in Thailand.

But I understand you've received word, Karl, and that they are safe -- Carl. CARL FARRINGTON, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: This is true. Good morning. This is Karl Farrington.

KAGAN: Tell us your story of getting in touch with your wife and your sister-in-law.

FARRINGTON: Very briefly, we were all three on the island, along with my sister-in-law's significant other, and really quite without warning this just tsunami came out of seemingly nowhere. We turned around and all of a sudden there was about a 25 or 30-foot wall of water rushing towards you, probably at about 40 miles an hour. And you had little time to try and get to higher ground.

KAGAN: And so you're now back in Portland, Oregon?

FARRINGTON: No, we're still in Thailand right now. We got off Poda Island, on the 26 very late in the evening. And then yesterday and today, we have volunteered at the Krabi Hospital to help the survivors. The facilities -- the Thai people are doing a very good job. We've been helping along with a number of other volunteers, to try and make things go as smoothly as possible.

KAGAN: and tell us what you and your family have been able to do to help out.

FARRINGTON: What we've been able to do is, my sister is a midwife and she has quite a bit of medical training, but she's not a physician herself. She's been working quite a lot with the physicians. My wife is a social worker and she's been able to work with a number of people who have gone through a horrendous situation. Sometimes they have lost or they have relatives who are unaccounted for.

And I've been really just trying to help out as best I could, whether it was taking messages to people, or trying to make sure that services were provided in a timely fashion, as best I could with people who had language problems. So we just tried to help out as best we could.

KAGAN: And Carl, how long do you expect you and your family will stay?

FARRINGTON: We're going to be here until the -- in Thailand until the 31 and we're flying back. That pretty much is the schedule of departure with the exception of my sister, who is going to -- who stayed on. She's coming back with us. She's extended her stay perhaps another four days.

KAGAN: Well, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sure many of your relatives here on the state side will be pleased to hear your voice. And thanks for helping those in need.

Carl Farrington from Portland, Oregon was on the island of Poda when the tsunami hit.

Well, that is one version of relief. A lot of relief today will be coming from private organizations. One such group is Direct Relief International. It is a medical relief agency that assists victims of natural disasters. It's based in California.

Our Ted Rowlands is at the organization's packing location in Goleta, California near Santa Barbara.

Ted, good morning.

ROWLAND: Good morning, Daryn. Direct Relief has the largest standing inventory of medical supplies in the state of California, and one of the largest in the United States. And as you can imagine, they are preparing for shipments to the affected countries of the tsunami.

After the tsunami was originally broadcasted, and word of this start to trickle in, folks that were on vacation here and at other relief organizations, came back to work. And they had been working pretty much around the clock to try to assemble the needs here, and get them out as soon as possible.

There is a plane that's been donated that will leave from LAX here in the next couple days. So, they working with other relief organizations in California to try to fill that plane up, which is donated by Federal Express. Get it to the countries that need it most.

This warehouse is 36,000 square feet. And they have everything from syringes, to gauze, to I.V.'s. One of the things that they do anticipate sending off is this antibiotic, lorabid; it's kind of a middle of the road antibiotic. Which can be used to treat any intestinal illnesses that could come from, contaminate contaminated water. They do believe that will be one of the needs.

The challenge here is to find out the actual needs in the different countries that have been affected. Because the tsunami has affected so many people in so many different countries, they don't want to clog the system, if you will and just willy-nilly throw medical supplies on a plane and ship them East. What they want to do is find out specifically what is needed in different areas.

And they've determined that Thailand is probably going to be OK. Sri Lanka looks like the destination for at least the first shipment out of here. But they've been on the phone constantly trying to assess the needs and trying to get the infrastructure in those areas set, before they sent these medical supplies. So actually, they're in a bit of a holding pattern right now. They've assembled some supplies that they think they're going to be needed. But they're waiting for word as to exactly what is needed, and exactly where it is needed.

Obviously a very difficult situation. A lot of people are helping out, though. And this scene is being played out around the world at other relief organizations -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Ted Rowlands from Goleta, California. Thank you.

For more on the tsunami disaster, including survivor stories, scientific explanations and interactive elements visit our continually updated website at cnn.com. We also have emergency hotline numbers and links to more than two-dozen groups that are seeking donations for help.

We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired December 28, 2004 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CO-ANCHOR: Well, sadly that is all from us here on "AMERICAN MORNING." Daryn Kagan is standing by at the CNN Center to take us through the next few hours on CNN LIVE TODAY.
Daryn, good morning to you.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Good morning to you in New York City. You guys have a great day. A lot to get to so we are going to get started right now. Let's take a look first at what's happening now in the news.

Asia's tsunami death toll climbs to staggering proportions. The latest numbers, more than 33,000 dead, more than half of those in Sri Lanka. But thousands more could be dead in Indonesia near where the record earthquake hit. Communications are still cut off to that area.

Aid is coming in from around the world to survivors. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.S. is not stingy when it comes to helping countries in need. Powell is responding to a U.N. official criticizing rich nations for not being generous enough.

And there's a new audiotape said to be from Osama bin Laden. The al Qaeda leader calls on Iraqis to boycott next month's election. Bin Laden also welcomes Abu Musab al Zarqawi to his terror group. He calls al Zarqawi, "The Prince of al Qaeda in Iraq."

And good morning to you, I'm Daryn Kagan. As you just saw Rick Sanchez working out of New York this week. We begin with the deepening crisis and the spiraling death toll of the world's deadliest tsunami in 120 years. And one measure of the disaster, the numbers they are so large they're absolutely staggering.

But it is the smaller stories. The personal accounts of loss and survival that are heart wrenching. And those are what we are bringing to you this morning. We have our CNN reporters fanned out across the region. We're going to start with Mike Chinoy in the Aceh Province of Indonesia, the area closest to the epicenter of the earthquake -- Mike.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn. Well, I'm in Banda Aceh, which is a major town closest to the epicenter of the quake, just 100 miles away. This has been a city that has been devastated both by the quake and by the tsunami that followed. And all around the city, there are bodies littering the streets. A short while ago, I went to a field where local officials have been digging a mass grave. There were about 1,000 bodies piled up there. Many of them bloated in the tropical sun, their hands and feet sticking out at grotesque angles, as bulldozers simply shoveled those bodies into a big pit, covered them over with dirt. There's a lot of concern that the decomposing bodies could spread disease.

While I was there I met a young woman. She was weeping. She said that she'd lost four of her children and her husband. They had disappeared in the waves. She'd found the body of her 3-year-old and had brought it to this mass grave. And she stood with tears pouring down her cheeks, watching as the bulldozers shoveled the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) body in with the thousand others and shoveled the dirt on top. A horrifying scene -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mike, you were talking about the combination, especially in this area, the combination of the damage from the earthquake and the flooding of the tsunami. Which is going to be the greater challenge for this region to recover from?

CHINOY: Well, I mean it's all together. The quake and the tsunami have devastated communications. Roads have been cut. Phone communication is out. There's a whole stretch on this part of Indonesia of Aceh, along the western coast, closest to the epicenter where we simply had no information. It's an area where hundreds of thousands of people live along the seacoast. And nobody has gotten there. We do not know what has happened to these people.

Here in Banda Aceh, the basic services are ground to a halt. There are desperate shortages of medicine. Electrical power is very erratic. People are running out of fuel. There's not enough water. And the relief agencies that the Indonesian government is organizing is taking time to get together because this is such a remote part of the country and because the logistics are so complicated. So here people are really in a bad way right now -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mike Chinoy with the latest from Banda Aceh in Indonesia. Thank you.

Well, there is one mystery from the tsunami story that has been solved. A young boy who was rescued in Thailand has been reunited with a family member. A couple found the toddler face down in the mud after a wave receded. They took the young boy to a hospital where his story was picked up by a local newspaper.

Within one hour, his picture being posted online, he was identified by a relative back in Finland. Twenty-month-old Hans Bergstrom of Sweden was reunited with his grandmother today. The boy's father and grandfather are in another Thai hospital. His mother, however, is still missing.

Many of the posh seaside resorts that were in the path of the tsunamis catered not only to the rich but to the famous. Let's take a look at some of the names that are popping up. Chinese martial artist star Jet Lee was vacationing in the Maldives along with his wife and his 4-year-old daughter. All of them escaped. Lee injured his foot on a floating piece of furniture when floodwaters swamped their hotel. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Ingram Stenmark was on a beach in Thailand, just about 30 miles from Phuket, watching the tsunami waves charge toward shore. The skier, his girlfriend and father were washed to the town's center where they managed to swim to a ledge. All three of them are OK.

And one chilling tsunami survivor story comes from supermodel Petra Nemcova. You see her here on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" 2003 the swimsuit issue. Nemcova tells the "New York Daily News" she clung to the top of a palm tree for eight agonizing hours in Thailand, as bodies rushed past her in the raging water. And she watched as her boyfriend was swept out to sea. She suffered a broken pelvis and other injuries.

The tsunami struck at the height of tourist season, and many are now stranded in a strange land, clinging only to their harrowing escapes. Here now, some of the ordeals in their own words.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were absolutely certain that we were going to die. Then we found a safe place up in the mountains.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a terrible roaring noise. And we looked through the glass doors and this torrent of muddy water just came down the steps and through the doors. And washed me away into the playroom. And the glass doors were smashed by the water and I just couldn't keep my footing. I was very frightened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just one long wave across the horizon. And it looked like smog from a distance. And as it headed from -- it sort of swept the whole road and along the beach, flooded it completely and took trees out. As it came it took my motorbikes out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all we heard was this mighty bang, and the next thing the place was flooded. It was up to there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it hit, there was absolutely complete devastation. After the swell went back out and it took with it cars and buses, unfortunately many tourists that were on the beach, there were people running, asking if they had seen someone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was absolutely no warning. I was asleep in a beachfront cottage. I heard a loud noise. All of a sudden the roof was ripped off the cottage, and my friend and I were taken out to sea. And just taking in currents that were so strong with debris and cars, and animals, and people tearing by. We were able to hang onto a telephone pole where a mattress wedged between us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Panic. People trying to get up from the first floor because it was happening so quickly. People running from the seaside. And people getting caught up in the water. So there was a fear, general fear because no one had seen it.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAGAN: And now a conversation for you, a conversation with another survivor, Michael Elliot, a columnist and editor at large for "Time" magazine, a sister publication of us here at CNN. He was vacationing in Phuket Island, Thailand when the tsunami struck. He is now in Hong Kong where he joins us live.

Michael, good to see you alive and well.

MICHAEL ELLIOT, EDITOR AT LARGE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yes. I was never in any danger I have to say. I was 300 yards or so from the beach when the wave struck. One of the extraordinary things about this whole event is that if you were just a few hundred yards back from the sea front, you hardly even knew it had happened. The dividing line between devastation and safety was like etched with a knife. It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen.

KAGAN: And so how did word spread then that something terrible had actually happened?

ELLIOT: Kids kept running -- came running off the beach. I was on a golf course just a few hundred yards back. The kids who were very, very upset came running off the beach saying that something terrible had happened. And people kind of went down to see what it was. I made sure that my family was safe and then I went down to the beach, where you could see the whole devastation in front of you.

KAGAN: And as I understand it, a lot of people did that on these places all around the world. And that was one of the problems. Because people would go down to see the first wave, and then many of those then hit by another wave?

ELLIOT: Well, I think that's speculation at the moment quite honestly. Certainly in Phuket, where I was I hadn't had stories like that. Because, what happened, and this has been said a number of times now, is that all the water was sucked out to sea, 200, 300 yards. And that kind of gave everyone a sense that something very, very weird was happening.

If you spoke to people who were on the beach, I mean they tell you that fish had been left stranded, and were trying to hop from rock pool to rock pool. Then waves started coming in and most of the people that I spoke to who were actually on beaches realized quite quickly that something very odd was happening and tried to kind of grab their belongings and head for higher ground.

The beach that my hotel was on luckily was actually kind of protected by something like an eight-foot high, tiny little sand ridge, which actually protected it pretty well.

KAGAN: And then when you did go down and see the devastation, is it possible even to describe what you saw?

ELLIOT: Well, it was -- it was exactly as people have said in the last two days. Anything flimsy, and of course, a lot of the native houses, to say nothing of kind of beach bars, and souvenir stores, and dive shops and so on. Anything flimsy that was made of bamboo or corrugated iron was just reduced to matchsticks. Palm trees snapped off at the ground. Telegraph cables down, what have you.

More substantial buildings in Phuket, more modern hotels, bore the brunt of the water much better than the houses of the local people. They were the things that absolutely really got hammered. But cars had been tossed hundreds of yards inland. Boats, I saw one boat, which I think was 350, 400 yards inland sitting on top of a couple of cars, actually. And cars had been kind of thrown through the air, smashed in to shops.

I think some of the injuries and deaths were not just on the beaches, but in towns and villages, because an awful lot of very heavy material, concrete and cars, were just kind of being tossed around like ping pong balls.

KAGAN: As we said you're in Phuket. Now you're in Hong Kong. Something that I think a lot of tourists who went there for a winter holiday were hoping to do to get out. How difficult is it to get out at this point?

ELLIOT: Well, I got out yesterday from Phuket. I got out on a scheduled flight. Flights had stopped from Phuket for about 24 hours. Then they started again. And I managed to get out with my family OK to Singapore, and then on to Hong Kong.

Phuket, of course, was very, very badly hit. And I think it's now plain that hundreds of people died in that region of Thailand, not just in Phuket. But the report that you just had from Mike Chinoy is where we should really be focusing our attention now. Because the fact of the matter is that we haven't really had an accurate count from the areas of Indonesia that were actually closest to the epicenter of the quake. In other words, Sumatra and in particular the northern tip of Sumatra, Aceh.

And as Mike in that very gripping report just indicated, when we do get accurate numbers from Sumatra, the figures that you have seen in American newspapers this morning are going to look way, way, way out of date.

KAGAN: Mm.

ELLIOT: We've not yet got anything like an accurate count of casualties in Indonesia. I think we've even hardly started to hear any numbers yet from Indian Ocean islands, like the Nicobars and the Andamans, which must have been absolutely hammered.

KAGAN: Well, as you said at this point it's impossible to even get in there. But as soon as we are able, you know, CNN will be among the first to get there.

Michael Elliot, I'm glad you're OK and thanks for sharing your story and your firsthand account.

ELLIOT: OK.

KAGAN: Thank you. Well, it is an island paradise that is now lost. The tsunamis devastated the 1,200 small islands that make up the Maldives. We're going to show you the before and the after. We're going to do that in the next hour of CNN LIVE TODAY.

But first we have more this hour on the tsunami aftermath. Coming up next, it was a bittersweet e-mail. One mother receives word from her daughter in Thailand. Now, with the desperate plea to hear from her daughter again, she's going to talk to us live.

Plus, some buildings are made with the toughest metal. But can they survive the crashing waves of a tsunami? We're going to explore the possibilities.

TED ROWLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ted Rowlands near Santa Barbara, California, where medical supplies are being assembled for relief efforts to help those affected by the tsunami. We'll have a full report coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Well, CNN has been receiving e-mails describing the horror of the tsunami. Now I have just one of the many to share with you from some of the people writing in to cnn.com.

Writing, "I witnessed the most horrible scene in my life: people running for their lives, dead bodies on the road, mothers crying. I've never seen anything like this in my life. Entire fishing villages have been wiped out, huge cars floating. The bodies of children no older than seven are lying on the beach." And that e-mail coming in to us from India.

If you have a tsunami story you'd like to tell, please e-mail us at cnn.com.

E-mail, it turns out, plays a key part in our next interview. Christiana Savino was rock climbing in Thailand when the tsunami hit. She survived. She sent news to her mother in an e-mail. But Jill Savino has not heard from her daughter. She desperately still wants to reach her, understandably. Jill Savino joining us from Denver.

Jill, good morning.

JILL SAVINO, MOTHER OF TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Good morning.

KAGAN: Thank you for being here with us. Tell us about your daughter, Christiane and what she is doing in Thailand, and how she ended up rock climbing on this beach.

SAVINO: She's teaching English at a private school in Thailand, south of Bangkok. It is their Christmas vacation. And after they gave a very nice little Christmas program, she's a kindergarten teacher, they -- she and her boyfriend, who's also teaching in that school, went down to Krabi, K-R-A-B-I, and to go to the beach and have a wonderful vacation.

KAGAN: I mean it sounds like paradise. Like the exact experience you would like your daughter to have.

SAVINO: Yes. She's told me it's beautiful.

KAGAN: Yes. Absolutely.

Now when did you first get word? I'm interested in your story as a mother. When did you first get word that something terrible had happened in this part of the world?

SAVINO: We heard that something had happened in that part of the world. However, we knew that there had been an earthquake the day before, and so we didn't think that she would be involved. We thought it was in Antarctica. When I got home that day, I got a telephone call from my best friend who lives in Hawaii, who had been watching CNN all day. And she was horrified.

And she said, you know, that's where Christiana is. That's where Christiana is. And so we started looking at our e-mail. And I could see that she was in the area that was hit. At that point, I was sort of unable to use the e-mail anymore. I was crying too hard.

KAGAN: Yes, I can imagine.

SAVINO: For about two or three hours before we finally got an e- mail from her.

KAGAN: What were those two to three hours like?

SAVINO: Well, I went through several, about a box of Kleenex.

(LAUGHTER)

KAGAN: Hmm-mm. Yes. Now you have the e-mail that you have received from Christiane.

SAVINO: I do.

KAGAN: If you can share at least the first part of it. Because I'm sure that was the hugest relief for you and your family.

SAVINO: The subject is: "I Am Safe."

KAGAN: Yes. Well...

SAVINO: That was a good thing.

KAGAN: ... that's what you needed to hear.

SAVINO: And she says, "Aloha, Mom. I just wanted to let everybody know I am safe and well. I am down in the south of the Andaman Sea where the tsunamis are. It has been terrible and very frightening.

Yesterday, I was rock climbing right over the water and was trapped on the Railay Beach where the tidal waves hit both sides. The water came in so fast, we hardly knew what was going on. Everyone was struck from their ropes and climbing the walls, when suddenly everybody started running and screaming on the ground.

So we untied ourselves and ran towards higher ground. The waves hit three times from the west beach, and one big one from the east beach where I was. Luckily, everybody but a few made it to the top of this rock to safety where we stayed for several hours. Some were injured and only a few died, to my knowledge.

It's very terrible now, because it's right in the peak season, so the beaches are packed full of families. There are helicopters bringing injured people and search and rescue boats are everywhere. All of the shops near the beaches were flooded. It is very scary, because there's a very close island that's very beautiful near here. And it is now completely under water, and it was our plan to go there this afternoon. It's one of my favorite islands.

There are thousands and thousands of people that are missing and supposedly all of the land is gone. All I can hear is ambulances. It's disaster and everyone is in shock. I will keep in touch. For now I am safe and I send all of my love to you."

KAGAN: Well, it sounds like she has been through quite an ordeal. But she said it all in the subject line, she is safe.

SAVINO: "I Am Safe."

KAGAN: That was probably the best Christmas gift you could have received.

SAVINO: Yes.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

Well, we know you're still standing by the phone waiting to hear from her. We wish you luck with that. And I know you look forward to the next time you get to hug your daughter in person.

SAVINO: I do.

KAGAN: Thank you for sharing your story. I know it's been a difficult few days.

SAVINO: Thank you.

KAGAN: Jill Savino mother of Christiana Savino.

We're going to take a break, a lot more coverage coming up after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We have another relieved relative with us on the phone. Carl Farrington calling in from Portland, Oregon. His wife and sister-in-law were on vacation on an island of Poda in Thailand.

But I understand you've received word, Karl, and that they are safe -- Carl. CARL FARRINGTON, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: This is true. Good morning. This is Karl Farrington.

KAGAN: Tell us your story of getting in touch with your wife and your sister-in-law.

FARRINGTON: Very briefly, we were all three on the island, along with my sister-in-law's significant other, and really quite without warning this just tsunami came out of seemingly nowhere. We turned around and all of a sudden there was about a 25 or 30-foot wall of water rushing towards you, probably at about 40 miles an hour. And you had little time to try and get to higher ground.

KAGAN: And so you're now back in Portland, Oregon?

FARRINGTON: No, we're still in Thailand right now. We got off Poda Island, on the 26 very late in the evening. And then yesterday and today, we have volunteered at the Krabi Hospital to help the survivors. The facilities -- the Thai people are doing a very good job. We've been helping along with a number of other volunteers, to try and make things go as smoothly as possible.

KAGAN: and tell us what you and your family have been able to do to help out.

FARRINGTON: What we've been able to do is, my sister is a midwife and she has quite a bit of medical training, but she's not a physician herself. She's been working quite a lot with the physicians. My wife is a social worker and she's been able to work with a number of people who have gone through a horrendous situation. Sometimes they have lost or they have relatives who are unaccounted for.

And I've been really just trying to help out as best I could, whether it was taking messages to people, or trying to make sure that services were provided in a timely fashion, as best I could with people who had language problems. So we just tried to help out as best we could.

KAGAN: And Carl, how long do you expect you and your family will stay?

FARRINGTON: We're going to be here until the -- in Thailand until the 31 and we're flying back. That pretty much is the schedule of departure with the exception of my sister, who is going to -- who stayed on. She's coming back with us. She's extended her stay perhaps another four days.

KAGAN: Well, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sure many of your relatives here on the state side will be pleased to hear your voice. And thanks for helping those in need.

Carl Farrington from Portland, Oregon was on the island of Poda when the tsunami hit.

Well, that is one version of relief. A lot of relief today will be coming from private organizations. One such group is Direct Relief International. It is a medical relief agency that assists victims of natural disasters. It's based in California.

Our Ted Rowlands is at the organization's packing location in Goleta, California near Santa Barbara.

Ted, good morning.

ROWLAND: Good morning, Daryn. Direct Relief has the largest standing inventory of medical supplies in the state of California, and one of the largest in the United States. And as you can imagine, they are preparing for shipments to the affected countries of the tsunami.

After the tsunami was originally broadcasted, and word of this start to trickle in, folks that were on vacation here and at other relief organizations, came back to work. And they had been working pretty much around the clock to try to assemble the needs here, and get them out as soon as possible.

There is a plane that's been donated that will leave from LAX here in the next couple days. So, they working with other relief organizations in California to try to fill that plane up, which is donated by Federal Express. Get it to the countries that need it most.

This warehouse is 36,000 square feet. And they have everything from syringes, to gauze, to I.V.'s. One of the things that they do anticipate sending off is this antibiotic, lorabid; it's kind of a middle of the road antibiotic. Which can be used to treat any intestinal illnesses that could come from, contaminate contaminated water. They do believe that will be one of the needs.

The challenge here is to find out the actual needs in the different countries that have been affected. Because the tsunami has affected so many people in so many different countries, they don't want to clog the system, if you will and just willy-nilly throw medical supplies on a plane and ship them East. What they want to do is find out specifically what is needed in different areas.

And they've determined that Thailand is probably going to be OK. Sri Lanka looks like the destination for at least the first shipment out of here. But they've been on the phone constantly trying to assess the needs and trying to get the infrastructure in those areas set, before they sent these medical supplies. So actually, they're in a bit of a holding pattern right now. They've assembled some supplies that they think they're going to be needed. But they're waiting for word as to exactly what is needed, and exactly where it is needed.

Obviously a very difficult situation. A lot of people are helping out, though. And this scene is being played out around the world at other relief organizations -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Ted Rowlands from Goleta, California. Thank you.

For more on the tsunami disaster, including survivor stories, scientific explanations and interactive elements visit our continually updated website at cnn.com. We also have emergency hotline numbers and links to more than two-dozen groups that are seeking donations for help.

We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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