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CNN Saturday Morning News

Special Coverage: Quake Tsunami Disaster; Deadly Catastrophe in Japan; Military Deployed Unit to Stricken Nuclear Plant; Search For Missing Loved Ones in Japan; Crews Working to Cool Damaged Reactors; Japanese-Americans React to Disaster; LA Firefighters Head to Japan to Help; Social Media Plays Role in Helping Connect Earthquake Survivors; Winter Weather Adds to Japan's Woes

Aired March 12, 2011 - 13:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello. I'm John Vause from CNN International, and you're watching CNN's breaking coverage of the unprecedented quake disaster in Japan.

WHITFIELD: Frantic search and rescue operations are currently under way, 36 hours after that massive earthquake and tsunami tore through the country. Right now it is 3:00 a.m. there and there's growing concern about fuel and food shortages.

Humanitarian aid is on the way from the U.S. and other countries. With so many roads damaged, the challenge will be getting all of that aid to the people who need it.

More than 200 aftershocks have jolted Japan since the quake hit, and some of them quite powerful. Several happened near a nuclear plant where one reactor has been overheating since Friday's earthquake.

VAUSE: Officials say an explosion there involved an outer building, not any of the reactors. People living within 12 miles of the plant have been told to evacuate. Before nightfall, more than 3,000 people were rescued across the country.

The death toll has topped 900 and officials now fear it could grow higher. We're getting new video in from Japan and it really is something to watch. Take a look.

WHITFIELD: iReporter Aaron Lace sent these images to us. He was attending a college graduation at a theater in Tokyo when the earthquake hit. The theater roof collapsed, but Aaron and many others were able to get out.

And we hope to talk to Aaron Lace live as soon as we're able to get a connection with him. So stay with us for his story to match some of those remarkable images.

Also, Japan is moving on several fronts to try and calm nuclear fears. The government is sending a military unit specializing in radiation contamination to a stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

CNN's Stan Grant joins us now from Tokyo with the very latest. So first of all, Stan, try to help all of us understand what exactly was that explosion and what might that mean about any kind of emanating fuels or fumes?

STAN GRANT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that explosion, Fredricka, really moved what has been an emergency situation here to a very critical situation. It was a loud explosion at the number one reactor, the number one plant there and it sent a plume of smoke into the air.

Now, there was a lot of concern right then that it was an explosion in the reactor itself. What we've heard from officials since then and that is not the case. They say that it was an explosion in an outer wall. It was not in the reactor. The reactor was not damaged and no more radioactive material was released into the air.

In fact, they say that the radiation levels have been decreasing throughout the day there. But at the same time, four people were injured in that explosion, and there is a 20 kilometer, 12 to 13-mile exclusion zone, which has now been set up around the perimeter and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes.

Also report of iodine being is issued as well to try to guard against the impact if anyone does come in contact with radiation. Now the government is being very, very careful to try to give the impression that this is under control.

They're trying to get people to stay calm despite the sense of crisis. This is what the prime minister had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAOTO KAN, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translation): We have also evacuated 20 kilometers away from the first nuclear reactor and I would like to give careful attention so not one citizen is affected by the radiation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRANT: Now, as you heard there from the prime minister, he's saying not one person was affected by the radiation, but local media had been carrying reports that up to three people in fact have come into contact with radiation.

The extent of that, we don't know. But they are carrying those reports. And at the same time, the efforts continue to try to cool that reactor, which they've not been able to get under control.

WHITFIELD: All right, Stan Grant from Tokyo. Thanks so much -- John.

VAUSE: Fred, this crisis is really only just beginning for survivors in Japan. Food supplies are dwindling in areas hit hardest. Many are scavenging for something to eat. Others are rationing out what they have, but in time those supplies will run out as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN MCDONALD, EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR: The biggest problem right now we have is there's no food anywhere. This is what I had for dinner 12 hours ago. I have had nothing to eat since then. I had some orange juice.

This is all I've had in 12 hours. All the convenience stores are closed. The grocery stores are closed. So everyone is on the road trying to find something open and it's just gridlock everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Once again, want to look at some of that new video being sent to us. It comes from iReporter Aaron Lace who was attending a college graduation at a theater in Tokyo when the earthquake hit.

The roof of the theater collapsed, but Aaron obviously was able to get out. He joins us now by phone. And Aaron, just describe for us the moment of the earthquake when all of this essentially pandemonium broke out.

AARON LACE, CNN IREPORTER (via telephone): Well, pandemonium is actually a very good word. Basically try to think of yourself on roller skates and the ground being marbles atop ice and you'd give yourself an idea of the way it kind of felt.

It was an absolute horrific event, obviously because lives were lost, and something that I think I'm hoping that the entire world community can help in trying to help the Japanese people with.

VAUSE: I remember speaking to survivors from the China earthquake, the Sichuan quake, and I asked one survivor, how long did the quake last? This was a week after the event, and he said it's still going on. I'm still feeling it. Is that what it's like for you right now?

LACE: Well, actually, that's a good question. Actually we are still feeling it. The aftershocks are coming extremely regularly and because they are regular. They're coming literally every hour, at least and they're coming in doses, extremely strong. And it's -- it's something that you would not wish upon your worst enemy.

VAUSE: And you were in Tokyo, which was a long way from the epicenter. So we must keep that in mind. So obviously closer to Sendai it must have been many, many times.

LACE: Absolutely keep that in mind. Yes. Absolutely keep that in mind.

VAUSE: The situation now in Tokyo, there are still 4 million homes without electricity, 1 million homes without running water. Is there any idea of the timeframe here before some normalcy returns to I guess Tokyo and then Japan? LACE: That's a good question. I mean, obviously I'm not an engineer for the metropolitan government of Tokyo, so I can't answer that question appropriately. However, normalcy is returning slowly here to where I'm actually situated, which is the central part of Tokyo.

However, the entire city is in a very -- and I think the country I can probably extrapolate is in a very gloomy mood, it's very moody and it's very, very unhappy.

VAUSE: Could you imagine how bad this would have been if Japan and Tokyo wasn't so well prepared?

LACE: Well, this is actually something I would like to stress. Japan is probably -- obviously I'm not Japanese, I'm actually from Canada. Japan is, though I would like to stress, probably one of the best prepared countries I would say on planet earth.

I mean, this was an 8.8, 8.9, depending on what I've seen on the internet and on television, magnitude earthquake, which was immense and it went on for what seemed like an eternity. And the way the Japanese people in a dignified manner and in an absolute civilized manner have handled the aftermath of this.

There has been absolutely no loss of law or order, no loss of any kind of civilized decorum of a people. I mean, it has been something exemplary and something that Japanese people can as a people be proud of forever.

VAUSE: Absolutely. Aaron Lace there on the telephone giving us his thoughts about what happened when the quake happened and how they've been coping with it.

And this is what we hear over and over again. Dignified and orderly and civilized have been pretty much the situation across the country, despite this awful disaster.

WHITFIELD: Yes, very much describes the country in good times and then even during this.

VAUSE: Especially in bad.

WHITFIELD: Yes. It's happening again. All right, thanks so much to that iReporter.

So with thousands of people missing in Japan, a lot of people with family and friends there are going online to search for their loved ones.

VAUSE: CNN's Josh Levs is here to tell us about some of the tools they're using, including Google's people finder. They've used this before. This is really fantastic, isn't it?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, it's back and it's back for a reason. There are people watching us all over the world right now who are seriously concerned about your loved ones. You're unable to reach them, you're trying to reach them repeatedly, and this has a lot to do with technology.

A lot of cell phones are down. Land lines are down, people not being able to access e-mail. I'm going to show you via people finder, but first a piece of advice from a man who really knows, Nate Berkus, who is a TV personality in this country.

He was in the last tsunami back in 2004. He tragically lost his partner, but for people out there who are looking for him and people who he knows are looking for loved ones right now, here's what he said.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATE BERKUS, LOST PARTNER IN 2004 TSUNAMI: Keep the hope that you will find your loved ones that are missing. Stay on the social media, Facebook, Twitter, all of these things. Keep posting the pictures of those who are missing.

Don't give up on that hope, because people are disoriented. They've been knocked unconscious. They may not know where they are or what's wrong with them, so there's always a chance that your loved one has survived.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVS: And that is so true. I know from all the coverage we did of Haiti, for example, sometimes it took days or weeks but there are a lot of people who found their loved ones. This is it, Google the person finder.

I'll show you have at the end where I've linked it for you. If you are looking for someone or you happen to be in a stricken area and you have information on someone, just go there, type it in and there's tens of thousands of names and in some cases photos as well.

So people who are looking for loved ones or posting information, people who are in the region and are managing to get online which does happen, then searching for names and they're able to say, I saw this person, I am this person, and in some cases we are finding people finding each other through tools like this online.

We're also hearing from people inside the region right now how important Twitter and other forms of social media are in connecting with people. Here's a resident of Tokyo that spoke to us earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YUSA KANAMORI, TOKYO RESIDENT: We don't have the phone line really working, so everyone is contacting through Twitter and they're knowing that each other is alive and we see a lot of comments from overseas and we're very cheerful from that.

We see a lot of like pictures that are like we think about Japan and all those comments and we are really cheerful for that and that's because that's the reason why we can kind of hold it together right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVS: So that right there is a message to everyone in the world. That if you are posting messages online looking for someone or just reaching out, there are people inside stricken areas who are really appreciating those messages, that's what she says.

All right, everything I've just shown you, the person finder and more are up at my pages, Facebook and Twitter, joshlevsCNN. If you go there right now, you'll see interactive maps and also get on the person finder, and more information from CNN.com.

Fred, John, it's part of our goal here to do all we can to help people connect with their loved ones.

WHITFIELD: Yes, that's extraordinary. You know, I remember talking to Nate Berkus when he is in Indonesia, while he was still looking for his partner and I remember how profoundly he described that sense of loss and that sense of being disoriented when looking for someone, a loved one there, and especially when you were just alongside that person just moments before that tsunami took place.

LEVS: And the sad thing in Thailand people are still looking for loved ones. They're still registering with the missing persons bureau in Thailand from the 2004 tsunami.

WHITFIELD: What a difference social media is making right now as searches continue to be underway. Josh, thanks so much for that.

VAUSE: The massive quake and tsunami delivered another huge blow to Japan's economy. It is already in serious trouble. They've been in recession for over two decades. Global oil prices fell on news of the earthquake.

Japan is one of the world's top oil consumers, third in imports behind the United States and China. Questions remain about the damage to Japan's oil refineries. There were fires in dozens of locations, including a refinery near Tokyo.

Also, Toyota, Nissan and Sony have shut down facilities. Two of Toyota plants are located near the hardest hit areas. Toyota does not know when it will resume production.

WHITFIELD: So this strong earthquake in Japan has nuclear companies around the world also taking notice now.

VAUSE: So they should. We'll talk to one man who's watching all of this very closely.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A close call in Japan just as the quake hit. Look at this iReport sent in from Aria Adam inside Narita Airport. He landed in Tokyo just as the terminal started shaking. He and his fellow passengers spent the night in the terminals as you see there. A lot of folks bedding down right in the concourse. The airport passed out sleeping bags and blankets, water and food for everyone. He says if there is an airport to be trapped in, it's Narita.

VAUSE: The nuclear plant explosion in Japan has emergency crews racing against the clock. They're now trying to cool down the reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The blast injured four workers, crumbled concrete walls and is heightening fears of a nuclear meltdown.

Joining us once again now is Edwin Lyman from the Nuclear Control Institute.

Edwin, just clear this up for us. Are we heading towards a meltdown? Because when we say meltdown we start thinking Chernobyl, we start thinking three mile?

EDWIN LYMAN, NUCLEAR CONTROL INSTITUTE: Yes. I think that the events are definitely heading toward a meltdown. This is why the Japanese authorities are trying to resort to measures like injecting sea water into the reactor to try to cool it down.

That does seem to be like a last ditch measure. We do know that there has been a loss of cooling capacity to some extent for more than a day now. And that could have a very serious effect on the radioactive fuel and we do know that there has been some damage to the fuel because of the detection of certain radio isotopes outside of the plant.

VAUSE: That's the cesium isotopes, right?

LYMAN: Yes, cesium in particular. We have the plant explosion in the upper compartment of the reactor building, which may have been due to hydrogen which also would have been a signal there was fuel damage. So I think it's clear there's fuel damage and -- unless it's contained in a short period of time it could get far worse.

VAUSE: These reactors are light reactors. Some analysts have made the comment light water reactors are unlikely to explode, which minimizes the danger here. Do you agree?

LYMAN: Well, it's a fallacy to say that light water reactor cannot have an event in which there's a large radiological release. There are several barriers to that release. One of them is the reactor vessel, but if the fuel overheats and melts it can essentially melt through the reactor vessel, leaving only the containment building.

These reactors in particular, boiling reactors, the containments have a number of flaws. And they are vulnerable to a scenario where the melt -- actually melt through the wall of the containment building. So these are flawed containments, and there's great cause for concern.

VAUSE: OK. We're talking about radiation levels which are 1,000 times higher than usual. That sounds terrifying, but it really isn't. But there's another point with the radiation levels, there's radiation in the control room where there shouldn't be any. So that's a concern.

LYMAN: Well, certainly operators need to be protected. Their environment has to be relatively low in radiation because they're exposed to it on a routine basis. So any elevation in the control room radiation is an occupational health concern.

But there are also reports of even greater elevated levels of radiation outside the plant, which again are indications of the escape of radon so I would be too sanguine about the impacts of those rates.

VAUSE: And finally this plan of the Japanese government has now put in place to pump sea water and boric acid to try to cool it all down, is that a good idea?

LYMAN: It's hard to say. I imagine their judgment is this is the only tool left in their tool kit, but it -- sea water, with all the salt it contains, can be extremely corrosive to equipment, especially at high temperatures. So I expect this is a last ditch effort to cool the core, but it will ultimately destroy most of the reactor.

VAUSE: Very quickly, what if that doesn't work?

LYMAN: If that doesn't work, then we'll be faced with further core melting and a larger radiological release to the environment and more countermeasures will have to be applied to protect the population.

VAUSE: OK, Edwin Lyman, thank you so much for your thoughts and brings us up to date on this nuclear crisis which is emerging in Japan.

WHITFIELD: Now in general, tsunamis are among the most devastating natural forces on earth. But how exactly do they form and why are they so powerful? Let's check in with Reynolds Wolf with more on the science of tsunamis -- Reynolds.

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Let's first talk about how they form. They can form in a variety of ways. They can form from an avalanche of rocks and soil just being a splash into water. They can form near an iceberg where a giant hunk of ice drops into water, too.

But in this situation it was caused because of the location. In fact, you look at this Google map and you'll notice you have this, slightly smaller than the state of California, then you'll notice a bit of a dark area right here.

That dark area is part of the pacific plate, with the pacific plate meets up with the Japan plate and where they come together is called the subduction zone. That's the spot. Of course, right here this red area where we happen to have the magnitude 8.9 earthquake.

Now, in this situation, what happens is when you have the earthquake it creates a displacement of water causes a little bit of a bubble, if you will, right on the surface, just a very large wave. When that water goes up, it's got to go someplace. In this situation it pushes in two directions, actually a variety of directions, moves in a big concentric circle and in this situation it happened to move quickly towards land.

When I'm talking quickly, if we were to go miles per hour, it would be the equivalent of a jumbo jet, 600 to 500 miles per hour. Any water craft that might be on the ocean, just a bill bubble on the water. But as it gets closer to shore, it begins to roll and build. This is a tremendous, destructive force.

Now we often refer to it as a wave, but it's a bit more than that. It's an entirely different beast. It's more like a giant wall of water. And when it comes on shore, the momentum it carries with it is just a massive, destructive force. It can take on virtually anything.

In this situation, cars and some locations possibly trains, airplanes and, of course, buildings and if is just a murderous, horrible thing to see. It's certainly one of the big no doubt destructive forces that we've seen in terms of the devastation in Japan.

We often think of just the earthquake itself, but it was really a two-part system. It was the earthquake and then the byproduct of that, the tsunami -- guys.

WHITFIELD: A big byproduct.

VAUSE: Prepare for the earthquake. There wasn't a lot they could do for the tsunami.

WOLF: Absolutely. And you have to think, too, this is an area used to these kinds of things. It's not an unknown to have this happen in this part of the world. Compare it to a place like Haiti, which is a very poor, impoverished place.

You compare it with Japan, which again is a place that has a long history of these storms. And despite the early warning systems of the warnings, the -- this happened at 2:00 in the afternoon, around 2:49.

So it was in broad daylight, but still, this -- there's very little you can do when one of these things gets going.

WHITFIELD: Right, quite perilous conditions. All right, thanks so much, Reynolds. Appreciate that.

So families around the world are, of course, hoping for the best if they try to reach out to relatives that might be in any one of those areas.

VAUSE: Yes, it's been tough, because phone lines are down, communications have been difficult. Just ahead, though, how people in Los Angeles's little Tokyo are coping and communicating.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: So that earthquake in Japan trashed buildings hundreds of miles away from the United States. So take a look at this video sent to us by a CNN iReporter in Tokyo.

This is Shawn Crownover's apartment in Tokyo. It looked like this. After he came back inside from evacuating it, Shawn says he felt three quakes in ten minutes and he says people are worried about the long overdue big one as they've been calling it.

So Japanese-Americans who have family members and friends in Japan, well, they're glued to the coverage of the disaster and they're shocked by what they see.

VAUSE: Yes, CNN's Thelma Gutierrez visited a Japanese community in Los Angeles, but really the news of this quake is still sinking in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the heart of Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, diners at Mitsuru Grill sat speechless as they watched images from the quake zone unfold before their eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God. Dear God.

GUTIERREZ: Down the street at Kato Retirement Home, Nancy, Naomi and Fujii also watched in disbelief.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a tsunami. This is the most serious part. I have never seen anything like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is tsunami.

GUTIERREZ: The women told me as disturbing as these images are, they can't look away.

NAOMI TAKARA, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: I have never seen anything like this. It looks like science fiction, really.

GUTIERREZ (on camera): What are you feeling as you're watching this?

NANCY NIIJIMA, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: Everything in the world is going to finish.

GUTIERREZ: You feel like it's the end of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The end of the world.

NIIJIMA: All the earth, yes, is going to finish, all the world.

GUTIERREZ: In all of your life, did you ever believe that you would see such a thing?

TAKARA: Never. Never. I could see it in the movies, but not in reality. This is unreal. It's hard to take. GUTIERREZ (voice-over): In a nearby office in Little Tokyo, Shelley Kwan searched on line for a friend who was working as a teacher in Sendai, near the epicenter. She found him on Facebook.

(on camera): So then you log on to Facebook, and what did you see? What's the first thing you saw?

SHELLEY KWAN, FRIEND OF QUAKE SURVIVOR: The post about, Wow, the ground actually opened up in my school.

GUTIERREZ: This is a message to everyone, is that -- to all of his friends.

KWAN: He says, "I'm OK, everyone. We're setting up a shelter for the people whose homes have fallen." He has another one that says, "Madness, people crying, and aftershock after aftershock. The school's a physical mess."

GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Shelley says her friend's posts stop when his batteries ran low, but she can sleep knowing he survived.

And now so can Yasu Kon, who's from the hard-hit area in northern Japan. He just learned his mother is alive, and so is his sister, who's still trapped at her workplace in Sendai.

(on camera): How do you feel now?

YASU KON, BROTHER OF QUAKE SURVIVOR: I'm just fine, happy, kind of, you know --

GUTIERREZ: You feel relieved, I imagine.

KON: Yes. Yes. I'm relieved.

GUTIERREZ (voice-over): But it's bittersweet because he says so many others have lost so much.

Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: You know, we -- I was just going to say we talk so much about how Japan is so prepared for all of these disasters, but obviously, when you look at those pictures, you wonder how they can cope with that. And we do know that search and rescue teams from around the world are now heading to Japan to try and help with the recovery.

WHITFIELD: They are. They are descending upon different parts of Japan.

Up next, we'll hear from one crew as they load up and get ready to shove off.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VAUSE: Crews are using sea water to flood a reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant to bring the temperature down. A blast at the plant injured four workers. The government is sending a military unit specializing in radiation contamination to calm nuclear fears. Officials have also evacuated tens of thousands of people living 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, around the plant.

Meanwhile, rescuers are scrambling to reach survivors as dozens of aftershocks rattle the region. So far, more than 3,000 people have been rescued, more than 900 people are dead, but that number is expected to rise. The Kyodo News Agency reports 9,500 people are listed as missing in one Japanese city alone.

WHITFIELD: And then take a look at this, devastating scenes from a bus crash in the Bronx area of New York City in the United States this morning. At least 13 people were killed when a tour bus overturned in the Bronx. The driver says he was clipped from behind by a truck. The bus was returning from a casino in Connecticut. In addition to the fatalities, eight other people suffered serious injuries.

And one of the two U.S. airmen killed in Germany earlier this month is being buried today in O'Fallon, Illinois. The remains of Zachary Cuddeback arrived from Germany yesterday. His mother, father and brother were there to receive the body. Cuddeback was one of two U.S. airmen killed March 2nd when a gunman opened fire on a bus at the Frankfurt airport.

VAUSE: The National Football League says labor talks have broken down. The players union responded by filing papers to decertify itself. Players and team owners appear to be headed for a legal battle that could jeopardize the season's (ph) pro football year (ph). The two sides disagree over how to divide some $9 billion in annual income. A group of players has already filed an anti-trust lawsuit.

Japan has been offered assistance from 50 countries in the wake of the powerful earthquake. A team of firefighters from Los Angeles is also headed that way. Reporter Don Guevara from our affiliate KTLA reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON GUEVARA, KTLA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventy-four thousands pounds of search and rescue equipment packed, loaded and ready to go, the high-tech tools the search and rescue team from LA County Fire will use during their rescue mission in Japan.

BATT. CHIEF DAVE STONE, LA COUNTY FIRE: They're excited to be able to help the people of Japan. They know that if it happened here in LA, that the international community would be helping us.

GUEVARA: The 74-person team is made up of doctors, building experts and firefighters. There are also six K-9 teams trained to search. The team has experience covering other international disasters. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it will be similar, possibly, of the operation between -- like Katrina, where we were doing water rescues, similar to possible Haiti, with collapsed buildings, with survivors possibly trapped, and also what we just did in New Zealand.

GUEVARA: The team could be gone for three weeks at a time, which means they have to pack all the necessities -- food, clothing and comfort items -- to last the entire mission.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most all of us carry baby wipes, believe it or not. This can either be a quick rinse, a shower --

GUEVARA: They've seen the images. They know the challenges. It's the desire to help that makes this difficult mission bearable.

STONE: There's nothing I'd rather do than this. I mean, helping people out -- I could can for our whole team, all the men and women, even the dogs, the K-9s -- is this is what we do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Again, that was reporter Don Guevara with our affiliate KTLA.

WHITFIELD: So U.S. Navy ships are steaming toward Japan with emergency crews and humanitarian relief on board. CNN's senior State Department producer, Elise Labott, is Washington. So Elise, is Washington taking the lead in the disaster response, or is it leaving it up to Tokyo to say, We want you, we need you?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT PRODUCER: That's right, Fred. Tokyo is really in the lead. The Japanese government is very well equipped, has trained for it. In fact, the military trains for these natural disasters. So the U.S. really wants to take its marching orders from Japan, what it needs, as we've been discussing. The entire U.S. Seventh Fleet, eight warships, steaming towards Japan, ready to help with supplies, with airlift. These helicopters on these warships are very important for bringing supplies, bringing personnel, search and rescue, these type of things that the Japanese don't have to rely on their own equipment, they can use their own for their own humanitarian relief.

And then the U.S. also sent some search and rescue teams. But they don't -- the U.S. doesn't want to do anything that confuses the Japanese as they're launching their military operations, as they're launching their relief. So they really want to say, What do you need from us? We're prepared to do it.

And there are also U.S. assistance team -- they call it a DART -- from USAID, a disaster assistance team is going to be there on the ground with the Japanese, ready to see what they need and how else the U.S. can help out.

WHITFIELD: So we're talking about if the Japanese said, We do, indeed, need your help, DART could be there in a matter of hours? LABOTT: Well, this DART team is en route. Some of the officials are already on the ground, and there'll be some kind of large assessment with a team of officials. And the Japanese will give a list of other things that they need. Right now, the important thing is search and rescue, search and recovery, trying to find those live survivors that these teams can find.

But then the mission will start to be more humanitarian, more clearing rubble, that type of thing. And as this goes on, the Japanese will be able to tell this USAID disaster assistance team what they need. It's more of an assessment team.

WHITFIELD: So that's U.S. government help. What about in the case of non-government help organizations?

LABOTT: Well, the American -- the International Red Cross, the ICRC, is on the ground. The United Nations has been talking about relief. And all -- really, the whole world has really rallied to the Japanese, how they can -- how they can help out. South Korea, I understand, also sent some aid. So it's really an international effort led by the Japanese again, very well trained to deal in these kind of missions. They've been prepared for these type of disasters. They've had them before. So Japanese coordinating the effort.

WHITFIELD: All right, State Department producer Elise Labott, thanks so much, from Washington. Appreciate that.

LABOTT: Sure.

WHITFIELD: So to find out how you might be able to help the quake victims, the tsunami victims in Japan, visit our "Impact Your World" page. That's at CNN.com/impact.

All right, Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerrys, iPads, all of it being used to help connect friends and family abroad.

VAUSE: Yes, and we saw this in the uprisings in the Middle East, in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya. Now we're seeing how social media is being, really, a mainstay in this disaster. We'll have that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Tokyo is hundreds of miles from the epicenter, but people there felt the 8.9 magnitude quake very strongly. Emily in Tokyo sent us this iReport, and she shot in minutes -- within minutes after the initial quake struck. She says the buildings shook and they wobbled for about an hour after that first shock.

And people in Japan overall are using social media to tell their stories, to reach out to one another, et cetera. Reggie Aqui is keeping track of some of the newest, most powerful images and stories that are being conveyed -- Reggie.

REGGIE AQUI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Fred. Yes, we're looking at iReports, we're looking at Facebook and Twitter. We're going to start with another iReport. This one just came in to us today. In fact, it's the first time that we're showing it on the air, another perspective of what it looked like as office workers were in their towers Friday afternoon. Take a look at this.

What we've been talking about throughout the day is how amazing this all is, the fact that these people in their moment of panic thought to take out their phones and start shooting around them. And we're getting so many of those videos, and we thank our iReporters -- that one coming in from Kevin.

Next we're going to look at some still photographs which tell a whole different story, that is of the story of the past 24 hours or so, as people have tried to make it, in Tokyo and other places, to the stores. And this is -- these are some amazing photos. This one in particular really struck me because what you're seeing there are -- it's a family. They're wearing helmets inside the store because they're worried about items falling as they continue to shop during these aftershocks.

And what you're seeing there, of course, is the lack of food on the shelves, just a few loaves of bread. There -- you probably can't read the Japanese, but certainly you can read the number 20. That's because it's 20 liters per car that they're being rationed, as the people in Japan try and make it to fill up their cars.

I also want to go to Twitter. This is interesting because NASA is now sending out tweets. And I thought this was fascinating, the photos that they're sending from outer space. So if you go to the NASA tweet page and then click on that, you'll see these images from space, a before and after shot of what it looked like in the area of Sendai.

Now, what you see here -- and I'm going to point it out to you because you'll see a thin green line. That is the coastline before the earthquake hit. And actually, that just went back on me, so let me see if I can load that up there. The green line -- here it is -- shows where the earthquake -- there you go -- shows where the tsunami, I should say -- this is the edge of the coast there. And you'll see here in this shot, the edge of the coast, but look at all the black in there. That's from the flooding from the tsunami. So the before and after shot from space coming to us from NASA.

Interesting information that we're getting as we're following it on Twitter. We'll, of course, bring you more throughout the afternoon and evening here on CNN. Fred and John, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Reggie Aqui. Appreciate that.

VAUSE: Yes, we saw those aerials yesterday, where you couldn't really tell where the coastline ended and inland began and the sea, and it all just merged --

WHITFIELD: It's all merged.

VAUSE: -- into an inland sea. It was terrifying. WHITFIELD: It's extraordinary. So those living in the earthquake and tsunami regions of Japan face yet another threat.

VAUSE: Yes, it is still winter, which means it's still very cold.

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WHITFIELD: So it's winter in Japan, and many people have lost their homes as a result of that earthquake and tsunami.

VAUSE: Yes, they're outside there, exposed to the elements. Jenny Harrison is with us now for more on the weather there. And Jenny, it's OK during the day. It's quite warm. But at night, it's getting very cold, right?

JENNY HARRISON, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. It's been a good couple of days in terms of the weather conditions, John, but that is actually about to change. You said about the daytime temperatures. Well, let's have a look what we're dealing with right now. It is, of course, coming up to 4:00 o'clock in the morning. You can see here that in Tokyo, for example, 36 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 2 degrees Celsius. Sendai -- interesting, not reporting right now. Not every station reports in the overnight hours. That is one of them. But further to the north, Sapporo, it is a bit colder. We've got the temperature there. You can see it -- 32, or zero.

Now, the winds also play a big part in terms of, obviously, how the temperature feels, but also with the next few days because, as we know, so many structures at such a critical stage, the winds, should they pick up, that could also be a factor. But right now, the winds are very, very light. Not to the north, again, in Sapporo. We've got winds at around 20 miles an hour, 31 kilometers an hour. But you'll see around Sendai, we've got the very, very light winds at just 2 miles an hour.

So what is in the forecast? Now, this is (INAUDIBLE) there is a change on the cards. Monday into Tuesday, into Sendai, we are going to be seeing some rain showers, and that could potentially turn over to snow. That'll be Tuesday and Wednesday.

The temperatures will be getting a lot lower. You can see here, just a few degrees above freezing in the daytime hours. Of course, in the overnight hours, it'll be well below freezing. Tokyo a little bit milder, but even so, we've got rain in the forecast through Monday and Tuesday. And then it does brighten up again towards the middle, end of the week. And that, as you can see -- those are the temperatures. On Sunday, the high temperature, so 17 degrees in Sendai. So Sunday is going to be OK, but really, it's going to be Tuesday onwards we're really quite concerned about the temperature for all those people, as you say, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Jenny. Appreciate that.

And of course, coupled with that kind of information, we're getting lots of video that is depicting exactly what happened that moment that earthquake struck Japan.

VAUSE: Yes, we'll have some firsthand accounts right after this.

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VAUSE: We've been telling you about an explosion in or near one of the shut-down nuclear plants in the earthquake zone. On the phone now is Emily Peck. She was one of the people who had to evacuate.

Emily, you're an Australian who is working as a teacher in Japan. And you pretty much had to run for your life when the earthquake happened. Describe for us what you actually went through.

EMILY PECK, LIVES NEAR NUCLEAR PLANT (via telephone): Yes, that's right. So mobile phones here have a warning when there's a large earthquake, and I heard some of the teachers' phones start to go off. And then the room started to shake, and the teachers -- I mean, I don't think they knew what to do because they had never experienced in their lives something like this. So I knew there were no power lines outside, so I just ran. And I grabbed onto a garden and basically just held on while the place was shaking.

VAUSE: So you grabbed onto a -- what did you grab onto?

PECK: Like -- it was like a garden sort of area, like, sort of a Japanese garden with rocks and stuff.

VAUSE: Right.

PECK: So I was holding on to the rocks. And the ground was just cracking beneath me as it was happening and there were bits falling off the school. It was really terrifying.

VAUSE: And to make it even more terrifying, you weren't far from that nuclear power plant, which is now the center of another crisis there. What do you know about the situation at the Fukushima plant?

PECK: So I live in Okayama-shi , and that's the town where the power plant is. It's just on the outskirts of the town. I've been to the power plant before. I don't really know much at all about what's going on. They tell me that 20 kilometers is, you know, not safe. I'm about 70 kilometers from the power plant now, but I really just want to get to Tokyo and get back to Australia.

VAUSE: Yes, you're really just trying to get home right now. I totally can understand that. But what's the situation like where you are? You're in the town of Koriyama (ph), I believe.

PECK: Yes.

VAUSE: Do you have power? do you have food? Do you have water? What's the situation there?

PECK: Yes, on the way to Koriyama today, we stopped at the supermarket. We got food, bottles of water. We've got power, you know, so it's certainly better than last night. We spent the night, you know, in Okayama with candlelight and just absolutely freezing. It was so cold.

VAUSE: And what's the mood like of the people around you, the Japanese? How are they coping with this?

PECK: The people that I'm with are teachers at my school, and they've just been fantastic to me. They knew that I was by myself and I had nowhere to go, and they just took me with them and brought me here to one of the teachers' parents' houses. And they're being -- you know, they're being really positive about the situation, but you know, I can't help but be concerned about what's really going on.

VAUSE: Yes, absolutely. Emily Peck there on the line for us in Japan in the town of Koriyama. She actually grabbed her passport and just started running. At least she's now safe, Fred.