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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Spike in U.S. Tsunami Dead; North Korea's Hiding Places Found?

Aired January 05, 2005 - 17:00   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.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. CNN "Security Watch," new pictures from space show North Korea's underground hiding spots. Is the United States in a better position to take out Kim Jong Il's military?
Memo to the boss. A damning report on the state of the United States Army Reserve from a surprising source. What it means, Iraq, Afghanistan and the next trouble spot.

And picture of hope. One tsunami survivor's amazing lifesaver, out in the open sea.

Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Lost Americans, a sudden spike in the death toll as many families still wait and worry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very concerned for him. I just don't know what to say. The unknown is the worst thing you can have.

BLITZER: Lost children. A heartbroken father tells how his 2- year-old was swept away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the last thing he said to me is, daddy, I'm scared. Please help.

BLITZER: Are others being taken away? In a region where child trafficking is already a huge problem, growing concern for the youngest survivors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The exploitation in just adoption. It's whether these children, frankly, turn into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited.

BLITZER: Behind the scenes. Our reporters show you what the cameras can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I counted 100 uncollected corpses and then gave up counting. That's a kind of awful thing to live with.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just death upon death, tragedy upon tragedy. It was kind of a black hole of devastation. You just never knew when this was going to end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Many people that I've spoken to just have dead eyes. They look at me. They almost look through me. They do not know how to comprehend this. They don't even know how to start dealing with it.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, January 5, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with new developments in the tsunami disaster. Secretary of State Colin Powell got a close-up look at the devastation in Indonesia, flying low over stricken Sumatra. The one-time soldier said that even in war, he's never seen anything like this.

There were big boosts in aid today, Germany pledged at total of $664 million for disaster relief. While Australia promised a long- term donation of $774 million, more than double the American pledge.

And as the number of Americans presumed dead rises, the overall death no the disaster zone climbs to almost 156,000.

CNN has correspondents and crews throughout the stricken region. Today we have 19 reporters and anchors in four countries. And this hour I'll speak with Mike Chinoy in Indonesia, Aneesh Raman in Thailand and Paula Hancocks in Sri Lanka.

But up first, thousands of U.S. citizens were reported missing after the tsunami struck. Now the worst fears of some families have come to pass. Let's go live to our State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, until today, State Department officials really refused to speculate on how many Americans might be presumed dead and would only discuss the number of confirmed American deaths. But today, after getting what they described as firsthand accounts from other survives of the tsunami disaster, the State Department official has revised that death toll. It's more than double what it was only yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL (voice-over): These are just some of the dozens of Americans believed killed in Thailand and Sri Lanka, a total of 36. Sixteen already confirmed dead. Now the State Department, after being pressed for days to be more specific, says another 20 U.S. citizens are presumed to have died in the tsunamis.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: In each of these cases there is a specific reason to believe that the individual was in harm's way at the time of the tsunamis.

KOPPEL: The State Department says some family members found photos of their loved ones on this Thai government Web site which has posted pictures of hundreds of unidentified victims.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm calling from the Department of State's Tsunami Task Force... KOPPEL: Since December 26th, State Department officials had been working the phones around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm happy to hear your good news.

KOPPEL: Calling family and friends for updates on unaccounted for Americans, eager to whittle down a list which once stood at 24,000 and is now at just over 3,000.

Touring the devastation in Indonesia, Secretary of State Powell made clear finding out how many Americans are truly missing is a top priority.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: And we're working as hard as we can to get that list down. With each passing day we're removing hundreds of names from the list.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: In addition, the State Department says it is working quite literally every angle it can to try to get to the bottom of exactly how many missing Americans there are. They are checking passport records, travel agencies, any bit of information they can, Wolf.

And on top of that, what they're trying to do for those 36 Americans believed to have died is to assign a case worker from the State Department to each family to try to help them deal with their grief -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Andrea, thank you very much.

In you, our viewers, have not heard the status of a loved one in the tsunami-affected region, CNN would like to hear directly from you. We want to find out about your efforts to locate missing friends or relatives. And are still waiting to hear from them? You can call us at this number, 404-878-1500. The phone will be staffed from 8 a.m. Eastern to 5 p.m. Eastern. After those hours, the line will connect to voice mail.

The death toll from the tsunami disaster is highest in Indonesia. At least 94,000 people there lost their lives. And the search for bodies goes on around the clock. Secretary of State Colin Powell got a firsthand look at the damage on the hardest hit area in the island of Sumatra. And he says he was overwhelmed by what he witnessed.

John Irvine gives us a closer look at this beachfront trail of death.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN IRVINE, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Ulalee (ph) district of Banda Aceh runs down to the sea, in terms of concentrated destruction and death, this is ground zero. Right now, it's the realm of the body collectors, and between them these teams recover hundreds of corpses every day. And there is no time for finesse. The leader of this group said he expected to be busy for many weeks. And needless to say, this is the most distressing of work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family, it's my people, my country.

IRVINE: Following behind the body collectors come the earth movers. The policy now is bulldoze and burn. There is nothing else for it. There's still a vast area yet to be cleared, and everywhere you look, the sights are simply staggering.

(on camera): This vessel over here is a floating electricity generator. As it was carried by the tidal wave, a number of people jumped onboard and actually managed to save themselves. The other remarkable thing about is it has finished up roughly two miles from where it was moored.

(voice-over): It was into all of this that the U.S. secretary of state flew today. We on the ground know what he saw. Here's how he described it.

POWELL: We've all seen pictures on our television sets and our newspapers of the damage that occurred here, but only by seeing it in person from a helicopter flying low over the city can you get a real appreciation of what it must have been like when the tsunami came through and caused so much death and destruction. I've been in war. I've been through a number of hurricanes, tornadoes and other relief operations, but I have never seen anything like this.

IRVINE: But then, nobody has in living memory. And none of us really know what they're going through, the living who are having to give up the search for their dead.

These women are looking for a baby's clothes. Finding some is the only hope the mother has of possessing a tangible memory of her first born, lost to the sea.

John Irvine, ITV News, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Secretary of State Powell and Florida Governor Jeb Bush may have been shaken by what they saw flying over this devastation, but our senior Asia correspondent, Mike Chinoy, has been on the ground in Indonesia's disaster zone since right after the tsunami struck.

I spoke with Mike earlier today and he was clearly shaken by something that had just happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Mike Chinoy, thanks for joining us. As we speak, what has just happened where you are?

MIKE CHINOY, CNN SR. ASIA CORRESPONDENT: : Well, Wolf, earlier this evening, it's Wednesday evening here. We had two quite significant aftershocks. One was kind of short, but very sharp. And the other went on for a couple of minutes. A lot of the reporters in the place where we've all been camped out scurried outside. And we were just standing there waiting. It's very unnerving.

This happens almost every day. I was awakened last night by an aftershock. Over the course of the 10 days that I've been here, there has hardly been a night that we haven't had one. So it just adds to the stress and tension under which we have to operate here.

BLITZER: You've been there at ground zero as they now call it almost from day one. Mike, how has this affected you personally?

CHINOY: It's very tough, Wolf. There's no question about it. It's an unbearably painful and horrible story. You go around Banda Aceh and there are still lots of bodies in the streets. Even just 24 hours ago, I took a walk through what used to be the main business district. I counted 100 uncollected corpses and then gave up counting. That's a kind of awful thing to live with. And the physical destruction is so immense that it's really hard to take in. And to be absolutely honest, I'm writing about it every day. I'm reporting about it on live TV all the time. But there comes a point where you kind of run out of words to convey the enormity of it. There's no way you can do justice to the scale. It's just so, immense. Everybody that I talked to, all the locals and the other reporters, the military folks, the relief officials, they all have the same reaction. Which is it's just beyond comprehension.

BLITZER: Do you have any sense how much longer you can endure this personally?

CHINOY: Well, we're hanging on. It's not simple. I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag on a piece of concrete outside our main work space getting about three or four hours of sleep a night. I've been in a lot of rough situations over the years, and so we're managing. But this is not something that I think is good for anybody to go on for too much longer because the combination of the incredible physical wear and tear of both the work pace and the living conditions and the absence of good fresh fruit and vegetables, you're not eating very well. Plus, the incredible stress of what you're seeing. And in a tropical climate where it's brutally hot all day long. It's a recipe for bad health.

The only thing I would say though is as miserable as it is for us it pales in comparison to what the local folks who don't have the kind of support structure that the international media have are going through. They're in terrible shape. And every time I start feeling sorry for myself, all I do is think about them and it changes the perspective very dramatically.

BLITZER: Mike Chinoy in Banda Aceh doing an incredibly great job for us. We're deeply appreciative to you and all our colleagues. Thanks, Mike, very much.

Survivors living with painful memories of the tsunami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was holding my son in my arms, and he had these blue swimming arms on him. And the last thing he said to me was daddy, I'm scared. Please help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Guilt and grief, there's no joy for the people still searching for their loved ones.

A child's pain. Overwhelming loneliness for the orphans left behind.

Without warning. One man swimming in the ocean when the tsunami struck. Michael Dobbs of the "Washington Post" was there. He shares his story of survival. That's coming up next.

And CNN tonight, a special report, "Turning the Tide." Our team of top journalists will bring you stories from the front lines of this massive relief effort. That begins tonight 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A week and a half after the tsunamis hit parts of Asia and Africa, frightening new witness accounts continue to surface.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you do when somebody says tidal wave? I never experienced anything like that.

BLITZER (voice-over): A city councilman from Huntsville, Alabama. A Sri Lankan-American family from Richmond, Virginia. A Norwegian father searching for his son, all haunted by memories of the tsunami. Winton and Joyce Devisser were vacationing in their native Sri Lanka when the tsunamis struck. They ran back into their hotel, but the water had already reached the ground floor.

WINTON DEVISSER, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were at the second floor then we were asked to go to the fourth floor, and we were pretty much scared for our lives.

BLITZER: Glenn Watson of Huntsville, Alabama was vacationing at a hotel in Thailand. The water climbed first to his knees, then to his waist. Then kept rising. He was clinging to a stairway handrail when he saw a woman and a child.

GLENN WATSON, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I reached out and was able to grab the boy and pull him in close enough to where we weren't going in different directions with the water and I was able to hold onto him. I couldn't get us out of the water. I didn't have the strength to do that. We were both under water for maybe eight or nine seconds.

BLITZER: He was unable to save the woman.

WATSON: When I see the tsunami on TV, I can see her face. I'll never live with that. I mean, I'll have a tough time with that. I think she knew that I had her son. I hope she did.

BLITZER: At another Thai hotel, the water smashed through the windows and then the wall. And Anders Ericsson and his two-year-old son were washed out of their room.

ANDERS ERICSSON, SEARCHING FOR SON: I was holding my son in my arms and he had these blue swimming arms on him. The last thing he said to me was daddy, I'm scared. Please help. I tried to change the grip (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I lost him. And since he was smaller than me he just drifted away from me.

BLITZER: Back in Virginia, the Devissers credit the hand of God for their survival. Glenn Watson was able to save one life even if he was helpless to save another. But for Anders Ericsson the grim search goes on.

ERICSSON: We want good news but if the news is bad, we have to know what happened to our son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Let's talk to another tsunami witness. Michael Dobbs is a reporter for the "Washington Post." He was vacationing on an island off the coast of Sri Lanka when disaster struck. Michael, you were swimming at the time. Tell our viewers what exactly happened after that.

MICHAEL DOBBS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That's right. I was in the water. My brother was swimming with me. I heard him shout at me, come back, come back because there's something very strange going on with the water. I couldn't see what was the matter because it was a cloudless sky, beautiful day, and there wasn't a wave that I could see. Then I felt this very, very strong current pushing me inland. And at the same time, the water was rising very rapidly. It probably rose about 30 feet in the space of a couple minutes. I managed to grab hold of a fishing boat which was itself jammed against a concrete building. Otherwise, I would have been swept inland into people's houses and God knows what would have happened.

BLITZER: And then what happened next? You managed to get ashore?

DOBBS: On this fishing boat what I didn't realize was that I let go of the fishing boat hoping to wade to shore. And the water started coming out again. So for a brief moment, I was pushed back out to sea, but I managed to get onto another fishing boat and so I was fine.

BLITZER: We're showing our viewers some pictures. These are pictures you took. What are we seeing?

DOBBS: That's my brother Jeffrey (ph) who was with me. He has some hotels in Sri Lanka. He's there in the city of Galle, the southern most city in Sri Lanka. That's the bus station in Galle which was hit by a huge wave of water coming from either side of the old Galle fortress. Buses were completely wrecked, many people were killed in the bus station. That's the island, the island is about 60 feet high, so most of it was fine. But this is the entryway which was washed away in the tsunami. That's again another shot of the entryway there.

BLITZER: The whole island under normal cities is beautiful. It's almost like paradise. But it will never be the same in your mind again.

DOBBS: Here we are arriving at the island a couple of days before. It did seem absolutely magical, just like paradise. Of course I'll always associate it with the tsunami...

BLITZER: This is the little island right there?

DOBBS: This is the tiny island with just one house there. You can see it's a sort of dream vacation spot. I would like some time to go back there and enjoy a proper vacation. And I think that is the way to help rebuild the local economy because tourism is one of the biggest businesses in Sri Lanka, and they need the tourists back.

BLITZER: Now, your family was there as well. So you were trying to save your life, but you must have been panicking out of your mind worried about your wife and kid.

DOBBS: My kids were up on the island. In fact, they slept through all of this. My wife had a scarier experience than me. She has two artificial hips. She was in the sea, she was swept inland, she was under water for a time and finally managed to grab hold of a rope and ended up in a palm tree.

BLITZER: She's OK?

DOBBS: She's fine. She was probably the closest we came.

BLITZER: Your brother is OK?

DOBBS: My brother is, too. He's in Sri Lanka trying to help with the reconstruction of his village.

BLITZER: Thank God that your family is OK. Michael, thanks very much for joining us. Michael Dobbs of the "Washington Post" happened to be there at that time.

Protecting the youngest victims of the tsunami disaster from exploitation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our concern here is, yes, the exploitation. It isn't just adoption. It's whether these children will frankly turn into child slaves if you will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll tell you what UNICEF and others are doing to try to protect children whose parents were killed by the tsunamis. And we'll look at why the sexual threat against children in this tsunami disaster area is not a new one.

Also a late memo that says the U.S. army reserve is on the verge of becoming a broken force. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: More on the tsunami disaster coming up. But there's other important news we're following, including this. American military commanders are supposed to toe the line and not speak out against the top brass. But the man heading the U.S. army reserve is not only speaking out but doing so in a stunning way. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is joining us live from the Pentagon with details -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, those details are in a private memo that's been made public, and in it the head of the guard says basically things would be better if he could do things his way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): In the unvarnished view of its top commander the U.S. army reserve is no longer able to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan because of dysfunctional policies, not a lack of manpower.

In a December 20 memo to his bosses Lieutenant General James Helmly wrote, "the army reserve is in grave danger of being unable to meet operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force."

LT. GEN. JAMES HELMLY, CHIEF, ARMY RESERVE: Congressmen, Lieutenant General Helmly, the chief of the army reserve, good to see you, again. Sir, our recruiting is behind target this year.

MCINTYRE: General Helmly is known for privately sharing his pessimistic views with members of Congress as he acknowledged in public testimony last November.

HELMLY: As the chairman noted in his office a couple of weeks ago, I did not sugarcoat that.

MCINTYRE: In fact, Helmly advocating policies that go directly against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to lessen the impact on reservists who don't want to deploy, victims of the so- called backdoor draft. In his memo Helmly complains about restrictive mobilization policies. And demands to use only volunteers. That he says results in reservists who enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): In fact, Helmly is arguing against the $1,000 per month bonuses paid for some reservists who are sent back to Iraq saying it blurs the line between volunteers and mercenaries. Meanwhile, Wolf, on another front, the case of Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun who was charged last month with desertion has in fact deserted again. According to the marine corps they say he failed to return from leave he was granted over the holidays. And a paper trail of tickets and ATM withdrawals seems to indicate that he may have flown instead from Utah to Canada and then to Lebanon where he has family -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre. Thanks for that report.

American military planners have long considered communist North Korea a potentially formidable battlefield foe. But a recent discovery has turned up an apparent North Korean weak spot. Our national security correspondent David Ensor joining us now live with this story.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATL. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this was a fascinating look from space into the secretive hermit kingdom.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The satellite pictures document North Korea's obsession with tunnels and underground facilities like this airbase with runways that runs into tunnels under a mountain. The National Resources Defense Council Team also used pictures taken from the shuttle. But if the hidden bases make sense for North Korea when they were built, they are not safe from today's American weapons.

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: That might have worked back in the 1980s, but with precision munitions today the North Koreans have just narrowed down the number of aim points for our smart bombs.

ENSOR: NRDC scientists say the imagery suggests the earth- penetrating nuclear weapon the Bush administration wants to restart research on would not be needed to stop North Korean underground weapons of any kind.

(on camera): So basically, if there's something under a mountain, you just blow up the entrance?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ENSOR: The satellite pictures also show North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities, the biggest threat to South Korea, say the experts would be a nuclear weapon on its capital sole dropped from an aircraft. But the pictures show North Korea's air force and navy are antiquated and decrepit. 48 small submarines, some Russian-made MIG jets, but believe it or not, most of the transport aircraft are (UNINTELLIGIBLE) planes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): There were some defense and intelligence officials in the audience at the presentation today. Once or twice the presenters asked them to speak up if they knew something more from the much higher resolution images that the U.S. government has access to. They didn't speak up and that material is, of course, classified -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very interesting. David, thank you very much -- David Ensor reporting.

And please stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

We told you about a missing Swedish boy who may have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital. An update on the fate of Kristian Walker, that's coming up. And what's being done to protect other children after the tsunami disaster?

Plus, how one man survived eight days out at sea. His truly amazing story of survival, that's ahead.

And a symbol of hope amid the destruction of Thailand, how one dolphin is lifting hearts as it finds its way home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

An update now on that 12-year-old Swedish boy missing after the tsunami hit Thailand. Both Swedish and Thai police are now dismissing reports that Kristian Walker was kidnapped from a Thai hospital. Initial reports said Walker was last seen leaving the hospital with a man. It was feared that he may have fallen prey to pedophiles or child trafficking rings.

Officials say the boy who left the hospital was not Walker. They say Walker is still missing, along with his mother and 700 other Swedes.

Some of the smallest tsunami victims are at risk of being victimized again. But private organizations and governments in South Asia are stepping up efforts to protect children from exploitation.

CNN's Mary Snow begins our in-depth coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their stories are different, but they are united in grief. For 13-year-old Mamaya (ph), you see it in her shock. She saw her mother swept away in their village in southern India.

"I lost my mother," she says. "I remember her, but I lost her." She says her father might be alive, but she hasn't found him.

For this 13-year-old boy in Indonesia, you see it in his tears. He lost his parents and two brothers in the province of Aceh. For these two sisters in Galle, Sri Lanka, you see it in their hands. They lost their mother and hold onto each other as they walk in the rubble of what was their home.

For this girl in Thailand, you see it in her gaze. She doesn't know whether her father, her only parent, is still alive. For the children of the tsunami, their sorrow is hard to imagine. And so is their fate. For now, they live in makeshift homes and refugee camps. There are offers of adoption, but aid workers fear ulterior motives in some cases.

CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Our concern here is, yes, the exploitation. Is it just adoption?

SNOW (on camera): Right.

BELLAMY: It is whether these children, frankly, turn into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited.

SNOW:(voice-over): In India, authorities say strict adoption rules will not be relaxed. In Indonesia, children under 16 in the hard-hit province of Aceh are being barred from leaving the country for fear they'll be exploited. And, in Sri Lanka, UNICEF's child protection officers have begun inspecting camps.

MICHAEL COPLAND, UNICEF CHILD PROTECTION OFFICER: Yes, it's about health. Yes, it's about their physical safety around the place, about sexual abuse, a whole range.

SNOW: And a range of emotions. For these children, you see it in their resilience. They play, flashing an occasional smile, this as relief workers try to provide shelter from the storm that has torn apart their lives and from the unknown dangers that may lie ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Officials estimate that there may be as many as 13,000 children who are left as orphans or separated from their relatives. The exact number, though, is unclear. And what aid agencies are doing right now is registering these children, getting names and photos and trying to find some living relatives -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Mary Snow reporting for us from New York -- Mary, thank you very much.

Fears that children made orphans by the tsunami disaster may become the target of sexual predators appear to be well-founded, in part because the sexual exploitation of children in Asia is by no means a recent development.

For more on this, we're joined by CNN's Brian Todd -- Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we've been speaking with State Department officials, ambassadors and human rights officials, all of whom are now on high alert about a very dangerous void that exists right now in the wake of the tsunamis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): State Department officials tell CNN reports are trickling in from relief agencies on the ground, sexual abuse of children at tsunami shelters, children abducted, trafficked to other parts of Asia. A UNICEF official reports getting an unsolicited text message and asking what type of child would be preferred.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We are appalled by these reports and horrified that thousands of children orphaned by this disaster are vulnerable to exploitation by criminal elements who seek to profit from their misery.

TODD: Human rights officials say, even before the tsunamis, many of these same areas, especially some resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka, were so-called sex tourist destinations, places were pedophilia and child trafficking exploded over the past decade as travel became easier and law enforcement was slow to react.

Now, with so many children left parentless, unaccompanied, even minimal protection is gone. And experts say pedophiles are already on the ground.

ANDREA BERTONE, HUMANTRAFFICKING.ORG: In these areas, there may be child sex tourists who either come on holiday and are situational child sex tourists or either they're pedophiles who actually may live in the area.

TODD: In its 2004 report on human trafficking, the State Department says India, Indonesia and Thailand are all -- quote -- "source, transit and destination countries for persons trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation." Sri Lanka is listed only as a source country. And the State Department says all four countries do not comply with minimum standards to eliminate the problem.

The Sri Lankan ambassador to the U.S. tells CNN, his government has received no reports of trafficking and pedophilia since the tsunamis and says authorities are on the alert.

DEVINDA SUBASINGHE, SRI LANKAN AMBASSADOR TO UNITED STATES: The shelters and refugee camps, including temples and other places of worship, the police have been employed. And the National Child Protection Authority is taking a census of all the children in these areas. They're finished one large area. They're moving on to another.

TODD: The ambassador says his country has strengthened its laws against pedophilia and sex tourism in recent years and has collaborated with law enforcement authorities from the United States and elsewhere.

Thailand's ambassador to the U.S. also claims there have been few post-tsunami incidents and that officials there are working hard to contain trafficking. We could not reach the officials at the Indian and Indonesian embassies for comment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: All four of these countries do get high marks from human rights officials for cracking down on pedophiles and traffickers in recent years. But one official says, with the new influx of parentless children, more structure needs to be in place, more orphanages need to be built and fast -- Wolf. BLITZER: Brian Todd, thanks very much for that.

And continuing our in-depth coverage of this story, we're joined now by Charles Lyons in New York. He's president of the U.S. Branch of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

Charles, thanks very much for joining us.

How concerned should the world be about this problem of child trafficking?

CHARLES LYONS, PRESIDENT, U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF: We should be extremely concerned.

Let me emphasize that trafficking is not caused by this emergency. It is an established, ongoing criminal activity. There was trafficking last month, last year and five years ago. Your report, I think, establishes that very clearly.

What we're alarmed about is the fact that this emergency very likely or very possibly will exacerbate the trafficking. The kids affected by the emergency have lost what even minimal sort of protections they had against trafficking, their parents, safe schools, authorities focused on the problem. And so getting a text message, as one of our colleagues did, saying there were 300 children available for adoption is the only real warning we need to call out to others that we have to be much more vigilant on this.

BLITZER: What can UNICEF, what can others around the world do about the immediate crisis at hand?

LYONS: Well, the immediate solution is to have child-friendly centers, make sure the children are united with extended family or trusted people in the community. Children need to be registered in the centers.

As we speak, there are more supplies from UNICEF and I know other organizations going into child-friendly centers. Back home over the long term, we have to make sure that the laws that pertain to the trafficking of children are followed. People need to be arrested. They need to go to prison. It is a perverse act to traffic for sexual purposes or any other purpose children. And so people have to pay a penalty for that.

We need to report it if we know it's happening. If there are children that are domestic workers illegally being aware of brothels that have children, these things have to be reported. They have to be stopped.

BLITZER: Does you believe, does UNICEF believe that these four countries directly involved, that their governments, local and federal governments, if you will, are doing enough to deal with this issue?

LYONS: They're improving. They're taking steps.

Indonesia moved immediately when they heard the report about the potential of 300 children from Aceh. They stopped -- within the province, children under the age of 16 couldn't leave the province without a parent with them. Governments don't want to see their children trafficked. As your report indicated, measures have been improved.

But we've got to enforce the laws. And that happens on both ends. The traffickers and the customers, if I can put it that way, are coming from North America, are coming from Europe. It isn't just about these four countries. It's about the other side, where there's a demand for this perversion.

BLITZER: Charles Lyons is the president the U.S. Fund For UNICEF. Thanks very much for discussing this critically important issue.

LYONS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: surviving the aftermath is proving to be as difficult as surviving the waves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It just seems to not end for these people. They've survived and surviving is just the beginning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Aneesh Raman joins us from Thailand with an inside look at the harsh reality people are facing there.

Inside of a refugee camp where children have virtually nothing. We'll hear from CNN's Paula Hancocks on her experiences in Sri Lanka today.

And washed away, a Thai man back on solid ground after spending several days at sea.

CNN tonight, a special report, "Turning the Tide." Our top journalists will bring you the stories from the front lines. That begins tonight, 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: In Thailand, more than 5,000 people are dead and almost 4,000 still missing, many of them Western tourists who were at the country's popular beach resorts.

Just a little while ago, I spoke with our correspondent in Phuket, Aneesh Raman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Aneesh, thanks very much for joining us. Give us a little flavor of how the kids there, the children, are dealing with the enormity of what has happened.

RAMAN: It's difficult for them, Wolf. We went to a school today. The schools opened yesterday, after the holiday recess. And even though they were laughing, even though they were smiling at times, the enormity, the hell that they've gone through is always lurking there.

We spoke with a couple kids, and within mere moments, the tears just come as they relive what are just enormously hellish memories that are entrapped in their minds. They talk of their parents being swept away. They talk of their houses being destroyed. And they find comfort in each other. You really get the sense that they're happy to be back at school.

But we followed one girl home by herself as she walked home, and you really wonder what's going on in her mind at those moments, the emotions that are brewing beneath at that time. And you wonder whether or not she or any of them are ever going to be able to come to grips with, as you described it, just an enormously difficult situation.

BLITZER: What about the fear of child trafficking, of child exploitation? In that part of the world, we've heard that there have been kidnappings. Is this a certain concern in Phuket, where you are in Thailand right now?

RAMAN: It is.

There are rumors that are constantly going around of children that have been kidnapped perhaps from hospital that are now part of that trafficking trade. It is just such a difficult situation, Wolf, here on the ground. We've been here now 11 days, and when this whole thing started for us here, it was just death upon death, tragedy upon tragedy. It was kind of a black hole of devastation.

You just never knew when this was going to end. You never thought it could get worse. The next day, it did. And you never thought, in the end, that it would eventually turn and get any sort of stability here. That started to happen. And so you started to feel, at least on our end, when you have lived this now for close to two weeks, that things were starting to get better for these people, that hope was there.

And then the next phase began, the children that were parentless, the kids being taken from perhaps hospitals throughout the area. And so it just seems to not end for these people. They've survived and surviving is just the beginning. Weathering the aftermath for them equally difficult as weathering those waves. And so you really feel for them, because they're at a loss.

Each day is its own endeavor, brings its own difficulties. And you wonder and you're amazed and you're inspired at how they're able to live each day. Just getting through the day here for them is enormously difficult. They're zombies. They've been cleaning debris now for 11 straight days, many of them working as long as they can stay wake, sleeping just a few hours at night. And all they can do is, like robots, clean away the debris, try and get children to meet their parents, try and clear away the bodies. The bodies themselves, it was so stark a few days in, because the bodies became like debris. There was no humanity in these deaths. And the bodies just had to be cleaned up. And so those people, those individuals at that moment couldn't be seen as such. They just had to be brushed away for the sake of keeping the living alive. And so it's a whole new look on humanity here. And each day brings with it a whole new set of difficulties.

BLITZER: Aneesh, good luck to you. Thanks for all your good work.

RAMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Living the tragedy from the shores of the tsunami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I had a group of about 15 little children between the ages of 2 and 5 all around me, tugging on my legs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Paula Hancocks is in Sri Lanka with he experiences. That's coming up right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: After Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the hardest-hit country, with more than 46,000 people killed.

Covering the death and destruction has been emotionally wrenching, even for experienced reporters.

CNN's Paul Hancocks has been in Sri Lanka. I spoke with her just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Paula, has there been anything in your career that you've done that has adequately prepared you for what you've seen over these past 10 days?

HANCOCKS: Well, Wolf, I think it's certainly safe to say that there's been nothing on this scale. Absolutely nothing compares to this that I've done as a journalist.

As a reporter, you do have to remain objective when you're talking about things. Over here, it is incredibly difficult to remain objective. You are seeing dead bodies which you would see maybe in other stories as well, which you can become fairly detached from if you need to do your job professionally. But it is the survivors that you talk to that really make it very difficult to keep yourself dispassionate.

Some survivors I've been speaking to have lost mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. Some I have spoken to have lost 50 members of their families. You cannot remain that dispassionate when you're talking to these people and you see the look in their eyes. Many people I've spoken to just have dead eyes. They look at me. They almost look through me.

They do not know how to comprehend this. They don't even know how to start dealing with it. So it's the survivor stories that really do get to you and really do make you realize that this is such a huge tragedy. Thousands have died, and it's the fact that thousands more are going to have to deal with trauma for years to come -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, how are you coping, Paula, personally? How do you deal with this?

HANCOCKS: Well, personally, I find the best way is to talk about it, to talk about it with some of my colleagues. We discuss what we've seen. We discuss how we deal with it.

And it's best to talk to people who have been through the same experiences. And I find that, in some of the hospitals, that's what some of the victims were doing as well. They were chatting to each other. And also they were talking to me about their experiences. It does help to talk.

And, obviously, that's one thing that journalists can do. They can certainly talk. And that helps you deal with what you've seen. That helps you process with what you're seeing on a daily basis here. And, of course, in the other way, that helps the survivors as well. If they talk about it, then they can start to comprehend what they're going through and start to handle it.

BLITZER: Has there been one moment, Paula, where you've simply lost it, you've broken down, you couldn't take it anymore, you started to cry?

HANCOCKS: There has, yes.

There was one, actually, just a few hours ago, when I went into one of the refugee camps. And as I came in with one aid organization, we had mattresses and things, some baby food. And as we drove in, everyone rushed the van. That's usually what happens in a refugee camp.

But as I distanced myself over to one side, I had a group of about 15 little children between the ages of 2 and 5 all around me tugging on my legs and asking to take my pen. I gave my Biro, just a normal penalty, to one of the children. And he ran off with it. He was so excited. And al little children ran after him because they were so excited. They had something that they could call their own. He was absolutely delighted that he had this Biro. And it was just the most heart-wrenching moment.

BLITZER: Well, so many heart-wrenching moments. It's a little bit on an upbeat note. I will leave it there.

Paula, thanks for all the important and good work you're doing for us, for our viewers around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: These journalists are doing an incredible job for all of us. And thanks very much.

Up next, two rescues providing a bit of hope to the people in the disaster zone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Listen to these stories of hope. A 23-year-old Indonesian man who spent eight days hanging on to a coconut tree in the Indian Ocean has returned home after being picked up by a cargo ship.

And one of the humpback dolphins we told you about the other day that was dumped into a Thai lagoon by the tsunami has been rescued and returned to the open sea.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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


Aired January 5, 2005 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. CNN "Security Watch," new pictures from space show North Korea's underground hiding spots. Is the United States in a better position to take out Kim Jong Il's military?
Memo to the boss. A damning report on the state of the United States Army Reserve from a surprising source. What it means, Iraq, Afghanistan and the next trouble spot.

And picture of hope. One tsunami survivor's amazing lifesaver, out in the open sea.

Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Lost Americans, a sudden spike in the death toll as many families still wait and worry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very concerned for him. I just don't know what to say. The unknown is the worst thing you can have.

BLITZER: Lost children. A heartbroken father tells how his 2- year-old was swept away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the last thing he said to me is, daddy, I'm scared. Please help.

BLITZER: Are others being taken away? In a region where child trafficking is already a huge problem, growing concern for the youngest survivors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The exploitation in just adoption. It's whether these children, frankly, turn into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited.

BLITZER: Behind the scenes. Our reporters show you what the cameras can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I counted 100 uncollected corpses and then gave up counting. That's a kind of awful thing to live with.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just death upon death, tragedy upon tragedy. It was kind of a black hole of devastation. You just never knew when this was going to end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Many people that I've spoken to just have dead eyes. They look at me. They almost look through me. They do not know how to comprehend this. They don't even know how to start dealing with it.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, January 5, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with new developments in the tsunami disaster. Secretary of State Colin Powell got a close-up look at the devastation in Indonesia, flying low over stricken Sumatra. The one-time soldier said that even in war, he's never seen anything like this.

There were big boosts in aid today, Germany pledged at total of $664 million for disaster relief. While Australia promised a long- term donation of $774 million, more than double the American pledge.

And as the number of Americans presumed dead rises, the overall death no the disaster zone climbs to almost 156,000.

CNN has correspondents and crews throughout the stricken region. Today we have 19 reporters and anchors in four countries. And this hour I'll speak with Mike Chinoy in Indonesia, Aneesh Raman in Thailand and Paula Hancocks in Sri Lanka.

But up first, thousands of U.S. citizens were reported missing after the tsunami struck. Now the worst fears of some families have come to pass. Let's go live to our State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, until today, State Department officials really refused to speculate on how many Americans might be presumed dead and would only discuss the number of confirmed American deaths. But today, after getting what they described as firsthand accounts from other survives of the tsunami disaster, the State Department official has revised that death toll. It's more than double what it was only yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL (voice-over): These are just some of the dozens of Americans believed killed in Thailand and Sri Lanka, a total of 36. Sixteen already confirmed dead. Now the State Department, after being pressed for days to be more specific, says another 20 U.S. citizens are presumed to have died in the tsunamis.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: In each of these cases there is a specific reason to believe that the individual was in harm's way at the time of the tsunamis.

KOPPEL: The State Department says some family members found photos of their loved ones on this Thai government Web site which has posted pictures of hundreds of unidentified victims.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm calling from the Department of State's Tsunami Task Force... KOPPEL: Since December 26th, State Department officials had been working the phones around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm happy to hear your good news.

KOPPEL: Calling family and friends for updates on unaccounted for Americans, eager to whittle down a list which once stood at 24,000 and is now at just over 3,000.

Touring the devastation in Indonesia, Secretary of State Powell made clear finding out how many Americans are truly missing is a top priority.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: And we're working as hard as we can to get that list down. With each passing day we're removing hundreds of names from the list.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: In addition, the State Department says it is working quite literally every angle it can to try to get to the bottom of exactly how many missing Americans there are. They are checking passport records, travel agencies, any bit of information they can, Wolf.

And on top of that, what they're trying to do for those 36 Americans believed to have died is to assign a case worker from the State Department to each family to try to help them deal with their grief -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Andrea, thank you very much.

In you, our viewers, have not heard the status of a loved one in the tsunami-affected region, CNN would like to hear directly from you. We want to find out about your efforts to locate missing friends or relatives. And are still waiting to hear from them? You can call us at this number, 404-878-1500. The phone will be staffed from 8 a.m. Eastern to 5 p.m. Eastern. After those hours, the line will connect to voice mail.

The death toll from the tsunami disaster is highest in Indonesia. At least 94,000 people there lost their lives. And the search for bodies goes on around the clock. Secretary of State Colin Powell got a firsthand look at the damage on the hardest hit area in the island of Sumatra. And he says he was overwhelmed by what he witnessed.

John Irvine gives us a closer look at this beachfront trail of death.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN IRVINE, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Ulalee (ph) district of Banda Aceh runs down to the sea, in terms of concentrated destruction and death, this is ground zero. Right now, it's the realm of the body collectors, and between them these teams recover hundreds of corpses every day. And there is no time for finesse. The leader of this group said he expected to be busy for many weeks. And needless to say, this is the most distressing of work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family, it's my people, my country.

IRVINE: Following behind the body collectors come the earth movers. The policy now is bulldoze and burn. There is nothing else for it. There's still a vast area yet to be cleared, and everywhere you look, the sights are simply staggering.

(on camera): This vessel over here is a floating electricity generator. As it was carried by the tidal wave, a number of people jumped onboard and actually managed to save themselves. The other remarkable thing about is it has finished up roughly two miles from where it was moored.

(voice-over): It was into all of this that the U.S. secretary of state flew today. We on the ground know what he saw. Here's how he described it.

POWELL: We've all seen pictures on our television sets and our newspapers of the damage that occurred here, but only by seeing it in person from a helicopter flying low over the city can you get a real appreciation of what it must have been like when the tsunami came through and caused so much death and destruction. I've been in war. I've been through a number of hurricanes, tornadoes and other relief operations, but I have never seen anything like this.

IRVINE: But then, nobody has in living memory. And none of us really know what they're going through, the living who are having to give up the search for their dead.

These women are looking for a baby's clothes. Finding some is the only hope the mother has of possessing a tangible memory of her first born, lost to the sea.

John Irvine, ITV News, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Secretary of State Powell and Florida Governor Jeb Bush may have been shaken by what they saw flying over this devastation, but our senior Asia correspondent, Mike Chinoy, has been on the ground in Indonesia's disaster zone since right after the tsunami struck.

I spoke with Mike earlier today and he was clearly shaken by something that had just happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Mike Chinoy, thanks for joining us. As we speak, what has just happened where you are?

MIKE CHINOY, CNN SR. ASIA CORRESPONDENT: : Well, Wolf, earlier this evening, it's Wednesday evening here. We had two quite significant aftershocks. One was kind of short, but very sharp. And the other went on for a couple of minutes. A lot of the reporters in the place where we've all been camped out scurried outside. And we were just standing there waiting. It's very unnerving.

This happens almost every day. I was awakened last night by an aftershock. Over the course of the 10 days that I've been here, there has hardly been a night that we haven't had one. So it just adds to the stress and tension under which we have to operate here.

BLITZER: You've been there at ground zero as they now call it almost from day one. Mike, how has this affected you personally?

CHINOY: It's very tough, Wolf. There's no question about it. It's an unbearably painful and horrible story. You go around Banda Aceh and there are still lots of bodies in the streets. Even just 24 hours ago, I took a walk through what used to be the main business district. I counted 100 uncollected corpses and then gave up counting. That's a kind of awful thing to live with. And the physical destruction is so immense that it's really hard to take in. And to be absolutely honest, I'm writing about it every day. I'm reporting about it on live TV all the time. But there comes a point where you kind of run out of words to convey the enormity of it. There's no way you can do justice to the scale. It's just so, immense. Everybody that I talked to, all the locals and the other reporters, the military folks, the relief officials, they all have the same reaction. Which is it's just beyond comprehension.

BLITZER: Do you have any sense how much longer you can endure this personally?

CHINOY: Well, we're hanging on. It's not simple. I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag on a piece of concrete outside our main work space getting about three or four hours of sleep a night. I've been in a lot of rough situations over the years, and so we're managing. But this is not something that I think is good for anybody to go on for too much longer because the combination of the incredible physical wear and tear of both the work pace and the living conditions and the absence of good fresh fruit and vegetables, you're not eating very well. Plus, the incredible stress of what you're seeing. And in a tropical climate where it's brutally hot all day long. It's a recipe for bad health.

The only thing I would say though is as miserable as it is for us it pales in comparison to what the local folks who don't have the kind of support structure that the international media have are going through. They're in terrible shape. And every time I start feeling sorry for myself, all I do is think about them and it changes the perspective very dramatically.

BLITZER: Mike Chinoy in Banda Aceh doing an incredibly great job for us. We're deeply appreciative to you and all our colleagues. Thanks, Mike, very much.

Survivors living with painful memories of the tsunami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was holding my son in my arms, and he had these blue swimming arms on him. And the last thing he said to me was daddy, I'm scared. Please help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Guilt and grief, there's no joy for the people still searching for their loved ones.

A child's pain. Overwhelming loneliness for the orphans left behind.

Without warning. One man swimming in the ocean when the tsunami struck. Michael Dobbs of the "Washington Post" was there. He shares his story of survival. That's coming up next.

And CNN tonight, a special report, "Turning the Tide." Our team of top journalists will bring you stories from the front lines of this massive relief effort. That begins tonight 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A week and a half after the tsunamis hit parts of Asia and Africa, frightening new witness accounts continue to surface.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you do when somebody says tidal wave? I never experienced anything like that.

BLITZER (voice-over): A city councilman from Huntsville, Alabama. A Sri Lankan-American family from Richmond, Virginia. A Norwegian father searching for his son, all haunted by memories of the tsunami. Winton and Joyce Devisser were vacationing in their native Sri Lanka when the tsunamis struck. They ran back into their hotel, but the water had already reached the ground floor.

WINTON DEVISSER, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were at the second floor then we were asked to go to the fourth floor, and we were pretty much scared for our lives.

BLITZER: Glenn Watson of Huntsville, Alabama was vacationing at a hotel in Thailand. The water climbed first to his knees, then to his waist. Then kept rising. He was clinging to a stairway handrail when he saw a woman and a child.

GLENN WATSON, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I reached out and was able to grab the boy and pull him in close enough to where we weren't going in different directions with the water and I was able to hold onto him. I couldn't get us out of the water. I didn't have the strength to do that. We were both under water for maybe eight or nine seconds.

BLITZER: He was unable to save the woman.

WATSON: When I see the tsunami on TV, I can see her face. I'll never live with that. I mean, I'll have a tough time with that. I think she knew that I had her son. I hope she did.

BLITZER: At another Thai hotel, the water smashed through the windows and then the wall. And Anders Ericsson and his two-year-old son were washed out of their room.

ANDERS ERICSSON, SEARCHING FOR SON: I was holding my son in my arms and he had these blue swimming arms on him. The last thing he said to me was daddy, I'm scared. Please help. I tried to change the grip (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I lost him. And since he was smaller than me he just drifted away from me.

BLITZER: Back in Virginia, the Devissers credit the hand of God for their survival. Glenn Watson was able to save one life even if he was helpless to save another. But for Anders Ericsson the grim search goes on.

ERICSSON: We want good news but if the news is bad, we have to know what happened to our son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Let's talk to another tsunami witness. Michael Dobbs is a reporter for the "Washington Post." He was vacationing on an island off the coast of Sri Lanka when disaster struck. Michael, you were swimming at the time. Tell our viewers what exactly happened after that.

MICHAEL DOBBS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That's right. I was in the water. My brother was swimming with me. I heard him shout at me, come back, come back because there's something very strange going on with the water. I couldn't see what was the matter because it was a cloudless sky, beautiful day, and there wasn't a wave that I could see. Then I felt this very, very strong current pushing me inland. And at the same time, the water was rising very rapidly. It probably rose about 30 feet in the space of a couple minutes. I managed to grab hold of a fishing boat which was itself jammed against a concrete building. Otherwise, I would have been swept inland into people's houses and God knows what would have happened.

BLITZER: And then what happened next? You managed to get ashore?

DOBBS: On this fishing boat what I didn't realize was that I let go of the fishing boat hoping to wade to shore. And the water started coming out again. So for a brief moment, I was pushed back out to sea, but I managed to get onto another fishing boat and so I was fine.

BLITZER: We're showing our viewers some pictures. These are pictures you took. What are we seeing?

DOBBS: That's my brother Jeffrey (ph) who was with me. He has some hotels in Sri Lanka. He's there in the city of Galle, the southern most city in Sri Lanka. That's the bus station in Galle which was hit by a huge wave of water coming from either side of the old Galle fortress. Buses were completely wrecked, many people were killed in the bus station. That's the island, the island is about 60 feet high, so most of it was fine. But this is the entryway which was washed away in the tsunami. That's again another shot of the entryway there.

BLITZER: The whole island under normal cities is beautiful. It's almost like paradise. But it will never be the same in your mind again.

DOBBS: Here we are arriving at the island a couple of days before. It did seem absolutely magical, just like paradise. Of course I'll always associate it with the tsunami...

BLITZER: This is the little island right there?

DOBBS: This is the tiny island with just one house there. You can see it's a sort of dream vacation spot. I would like some time to go back there and enjoy a proper vacation. And I think that is the way to help rebuild the local economy because tourism is one of the biggest businesses in Sri Lanka, and they need the tourists back.

BLITZER: Now, your family was there as well. So you were trying to save your life, but you must have been panicking out of your mind worried about your wife and kid.

DOBBS: My kids were up on the island. In fact, they slept through all of this. My wife had a scarier experience than me. She has two artificial hips. She was in the sea, she was swept inland, she was under water for a time and finally managed to grab hold of a rope and ended up in a palm tree.

BLITZER: She's OK?

DOBBS: She's fine. She was probably the closest we came.

BLITZER: Your brother is OK?

DOBBS: My brother is, too. He's in Sri Lanka trying to help with the reconstruction of his village.

BLITZER: Thank God that your family is OK. Michael, thanks very much for joining us. Michael Dobbs of the "Washington Post" happened to be there at that time.

Protecting the youngest victims of the tsunami disaster from exploitation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our concern here is, yes, the exploitation. It isn't just adoption. It's whether these children will frankly turn into child slaves if you will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll tell you what UNICEF and others are doing to try to protect children whose parents were killed by the tsunamis. And we'll look at why the sexual threat against children in this tsunami disaster area is not a new one.

Also a late memo that says the U.S. army reserve is on the verge of becoming a broken force. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: More on the tsunami disaster coming up. But there's other important news we're following, including this. American military commanders are supposed to toe the line and not speak out against the top brass. But the man heading the U.S. army reserve is not only speaking out but doing so in a stunning way. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is joining us live from the Pentagon with details -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, those details are in a private memo that's been made public, and in it the head of the guard says basically things would be better if he could do things his way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): In the unvarnished view of its top commander the U.S. army reserve is no longer able to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan because of dysfunctional policies, not a lack of manpower.

In a December 20 memo to his bosses Lieutenant General James Helmly wrote, "the army reserve is in grave danger of being unable to meet operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force."

LT. GEN. JAMES HELMLY, CHIEF, ARMY RESERVE: Congressmen, Lieutenant General Helmly, the chief of the army reserve, good to see you, again. Sir, our recruiting is behind target this year.

MCINTYRE: General Helmly is known for privately sharing his pessimistic views with members of Congress as he acknowledged in public testimony last November.

HELMLY: As the chairman noted in his office a couple of weeks ago, I did not sugarcoat that.

MCINTYRE: In fact, Helmly advocating policies that go directly against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to lessen the impact on reservists who don't want to deploy, victims of the so- called backdoor draft. In his memo Helmly complains about restrictive mobilization policies. And demands to use only volunteers. That he says results in reservists who enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): In fact, Helmly is arguing against the $1,000 per month bonuses paid for some reservists who are sent back to Iraq saying it blurs the line between volunteers and mercenaries. Meanwhile, Wolf, on another front, the case of Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun who was charged last month with desertion has in fact deserted again. According to the marine corps they say he failed to return from leave he was granted over the holidays. And a paper trail of tickets and ATM withdrawals seems to indicate that he may have flown instead from Utah to Canada and then to Lebanon where he has family -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre. Thanks for that report.

American military planners have long considered communist North Korea a potentially formidable battlefield foe. But a recent discovery has turned up an apparent North Korean weak spot. Our national security correspondent David Ensor joining us now live with this story.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATL. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this was a fascinating look from space into the secretive hermit kingdom.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The satellite pictures document North Korea's obsession with tunnels and underground facilities like this airbase with runways that runs into tunnels under a mountain. The National Resources Defense Council Team also used pictures taken from the shuttle. But if the hidden bases make sense for North Korea when they were built, they are not safe from today's American weapons.

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: That might have worked back in the 1980s, but with precision munitions today the North Koreans have just narrowed down the number of aim points for our smart bombs.

ENSOR: NRDC scientists say the imagery suggests the earth- penetrating nuclear weapon the Bush administration wants to restart research on would not be needed to stop North Korean underground weapons of any kind.

(on camera): So basically, if there's something under a mountain, you just blow up the entrance?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ENSOR: The satellite pictures also show North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities, the biggest threat to South Korea, say the experts would be a nuclear weapon on its capital sole dropped from an aircraft. But the pictures show North Korea's air force and navy are antiquated and decrepit. 48 small submarines, some Russian-made MIG jets, but believe it or not, most of the transport aircraft are (UNINTELLIGIBLE) planes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): There were some defense and intelligence officials in the audience at the presentation today. Once or twice the presenters asked them to speak up if they knew something more from the much higher resolution images that the U.S. government has access to. They didn't speak up and that material is, of course, classified -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very interesting. David, thank you very much -- David Ensor reporting.

And please stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

We told you about a missing Swedish boy who may have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital. An update on the fate of Kristian Walker, that's coming up. And what's being done to protect other children after the tsunami disaster?

Plus, how one man survived eight days out at sea. His truly amazing story of survival, that's ahead.

And a symbol of hope amid the destruction of Thailand, how one dolphin is lifting hearts as it finds its way home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

An update now on that 12-year-old Swedish boy missing after the tsunami hit Thailand. Both Swedish and Thai police are now dismissing reports that Kristian Walker was kidnapped from a Thai hospital. Initial reports said Walker was last seen leaving the hospital with a man. It was feared that he may have fallen prey to pedophiles or child trafficking rings.

Officials say the boy who left the hospital was not Walker. They say Walker is still missing, along with his mother and 700 other Swedes.

Some of the smallest tsunami victims are at risk of being victimized again. But private organizations and governments in South Asia are stepping up efforts to protect children from exploitation.

CNN's Mary Snow begins our in-depth coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their stories are different, but they are united in grief. For 13-year-old Mamaya (ph), you see it in her shock. She saw her mother swept away in their village in southern India.

"I lost my mother," she says. "I remember her, but I lost her." She says her father might be alive, but she hasn't found him.

For this 13-year-old boy in Indonesia, you see it in his tears. He lost his parents and two brothers in the province of Aceh. For these two sisters in Galle, Sri Lanka, you see it in their hands. They lost their mother and hold onto each other as they walk in the rubble of what was their home.

For this girl in Thailand, you see it in her gaze. She doesn't know whether her father, her only parent, is still alive. For the children of the tsunami, their sorrow is hard to imagine. And so is their fate. For now, they live in makeshift homes and refugee camps. There are offers of adoption, but aid workers fear ulterior motives in some cases.

CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Our concern here is, yes, the exploitation. Is it just adoption?

SNOW (on camera): Right.

BELLAMY: It is whether these children, frankly, turn into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited.

SNOW:(voice-over): In India, authorities say strict adoption rules will not be relaxed. In Indonesia, children under 16 in the hard-hit province of Aceh are being barred from leaving the country for fear they'll be exploited. And, in Sri Lanka, UNICEF's child protection officers have begun inspecting camps.

MICHAEL COPLAND, UNICEF CHILD PROTECTION OFFICER: Yes, it's about health. Yes, it's about their physical safety around the place, about sexual abuse, a whole range.

SNOW: And a range of emotions. For these children, you see it in their resilience. They play, flashing an occasional smile, this as relief workers try to provide shelter from the storm that has torn apart their lives and from the unknown dangers that may lie ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Officials estimate that there may be as many as 13,000 children who are left as orphans or separated from their relatives. The exact number, though, is unclear. And what aid agencies are doing right now is registering these children, getting names and photos and trying to find some living relatives -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Mary Snow reporting for us from New York -- Mary, thank you very much.

Fears that children made orphans by the tsunami disaster may become the target of sexual predators appear to be well-founded, in part because the sexual exploitation of children in Asia is by no means a recent development.

For more on this, we're joined by CNN's Brian Todd -- Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we've been speaking with State Department officials, ambassadors and human rights officials, all of whom are now on high alert about a very dangerous void that exists right now in the wake of the tsunamis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): State Department officials tell CNN reports are trickling in from relief agencies on the ground, sexual abuse of children at tsunami shelters, children abducted, trafficked to other parts of Asia. A UNICEF official reports getting an unsolicited text message and asking what type of child would be preferred.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We are appalled by these reports and horrified that thousands of children orphaned by this disaster are vulnerable to exploitation by criminal elements who seek to profit from their misery.

TODD: Human rights officials say, even before the tsunamis, many of these same areas, especially some resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka, were so-called sex tourist destinations, places were pedophilia and child trafficking exploded over the past decade as travel became easier and law enforcement was slow to react.

Now, with so many children left parentless, unaccompanied, even minimal protection is gone. And experts say pedophiles are already on the ground.

ANDREA BERTONE, HUMANTRAFFICKING.ORG: In these areas, there may be child sex tourists who either come on holiday and are situational child sex tourists or either they're pedophiles who actually may live in the area.

TODD: In its 2004 report on human trafficking, the State Department says India, Indonesia and Thailand are all -- quote -- "source, transit and destination countries for persons trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation." Sri Lanka is listed only as a source country. And the State Department says all four countries do not comply with minimum standards to eliminate the problem.

The Sri Lankan ambassador to the U.S. tells CNN, his government has received no reports of trafficking and pedophilia since the tsunamis and says authorities are on the alert.

DEVINDA SUBASINGHE, SRI LANKAN AMBASSADOR TO UNITED STATES: The shelters and refugee camps, including temples and other places of worship, the police have been employed. And the National Child Protection Authority is taking a census of all the children in these areas. They're finished one large area. They're moving on to another.

TODD: The ambassador says his country has strengthened its laws against pedophilia and sex tourism in recent years and has collaborated with law enforcement authorities from the United States and elsewhere.

Thailand's ambassador to the U.S. also claims there have been few post-tsunami incidents and that officials there are working hard to contain trafficking. We could not reach the officials at the Indian and Indonesian embassies for comment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: All four of these countries do get high marks from human rights officials for cracking down on pedophiles and traffickers in recent years. But one official says, with the new influx of parentless children, more structure needs to be in place, more orphanages need to be built and fast -- Wolf. BLITZER: Brian Todd, thanks very much for that.

And continuing our in-depth coverage of this story, we're joined now by Charles Lyons in New York. He's president of the U.S. Branch of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

Charles, thanks very much for joining us.

How concerned should the world be about this problem of child trafficking?

CHARLES LYONS, PRESIDENT, U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF: We should be extremely concerned.

Let me emphasize that trafficking is not caused by this emergency. It is an established, ongoing criminal activity. There was trafficking last month, last year and five years ago. Your report, I think, establishes that very clearly.

What we're alarmed about is the fact that this emergency very likely or very possibly will exacerbate the trafficking. The kids affected by the emergency have lost what even minimal sort of protections they had against trafficking, their parents, safe schools, authorities focused on the problem. And so getting a text message, as one of our colleagues did, saying there were 300 children available for adoption is the only real warning we need to call out to others that we have to be much more vigilant on this.

BLITZER: What can UNICEF, what can others around the world do about the immediate crisis at hand?

LYONS: Well, the immediate solution is to have child-friendly centers, make sure the children are united with extended family or trusted people in the community. Children need to be registered in the centers.

As we speak, there are more supplies from UNICEF and I know other organizations going into child-friendly centers. Back home over the long term, we have to make sure that the laws that pertain to the trafficking of children are followed. People need to be arrested. They need to go to prison. It is a perverse act to traffic for sexual purposes or any other purpose children. And so people have to pay a penalty for that.

We need to report it if we know it's happening. If there are children that are domestic workers illegally being aware of brothels that have children, these things have to be reported. They have to be stopped.

BLITZER: Does you believe, does UNICEF believe that these four countries directly involved, that their governments, local and federal governments, if you will, are doing enough to deal with this issue?

LYONS: They're improving. They're taking steps.

Indonesia moved immediately when they heard the report about the potential of 300 children from Aceh. They stopped -- within the province, children under the age of 16 couldn't leave the province without a parent with them. Governments don't want to see their children trafficked. As your report indicated, measures have been improved.

But we've got to enforce the laws. And that happens on both ends. The traffickers and the customers, if I can put it that way, are coming from North America, are coming from Europe. It isn't just about these four countries. It's about the other side, where there's a demand for this perversion.

BLITZER: Charles Lyons is the president the U.S. Fund For UNICEF. Thanks very much for discussing this critically important issue.

LYONS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: surviving the aftermath is proving to be as difficult as surviving the waves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It just seems to not end for these people. They've survived and surviving is just the beginning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Aneesh Raman joins us from Thailand with an inside look at the harsh reality people are facing there.

Inside of a refugee camp where children have virtually nothing. We'll hear from CNN's Paula Hancocks on her experiences in Sri Lanka today.

And washed away, a Thai man back on solid ground after spending several days at sea.

CNN tonight, a special report, "Turning the Tide." Our top journalists will bring you the stories from the front lines. That begins tonight, 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: In Thailand, more than 5,000 people are dead and almost 4,000 still missing, many of them Western tourists who were at the country's popular beach resorts.

Just a little while ago, I spoke with our correspondent in Phuket, Aneesh Raman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Aneesh, thanks very much for joining us. Give us a little flavor of how the kids there, the children, are dealing with the enormity of what has happened.

RAMAN: It's difficult for them, Wolf. We went to a school today. The schools opened yesterday, after the holiday recess. And even though they were laughing, even though they were smiling at times, the enormity, the hell that they've gone through is always lurking there.

We spoke with a couple kids, and within mere moments, the tears just come as they relive what are just enormously hellish memories that are entrapped in their minds. They talk of their parents being swept away. They talk of their houses being destroyed. And they find comfort in each other. You really get the sense that they're happy to be back at school.

But we followed one girl home by herself as she walked home, and you really wonder what's going on in her mind at those moments, the emotions that are brewing beneath at that time. And you wonder whether or not she or any of them are ever going to be able to come to grips with, as you described it, just an enormously difficult situation.

BLITZER: What about the fear of child trafficking, of child exploitation? In that part of the world, we've heard that there have been kidnappings. Is this a certain concern in Phuket, where you are in Thailand right now?

RAMAN: It is.

There are rumors that are constantly going around of children that have been kidnapped perhaps from hospital that are now part of that trafficking trade. It is just such a difficult situation, Wolf, here on the ground. We've been here now 11 days, and when this whole thing started for us here, it was just death upon death, tragedy upon tragedy. It was kind of a black hole of devastation.

You just never knew when this was going to end. You never thought it could get worse. The next day, it did. And you never thought, in the end, that it would eventually turn and get any sort of stability here. That started to happen. And so you started to feel, at least on our end, when you have lived this now for close to two weeks, that things were starting to get better for these people, that hope was there.

And then the next phase began, the children that were parentless, the kids being taken from perhaps hospitals throughout the area. And so it just seems to not end for these people. They've survived and surviving is just the beginning. Weathering the aftermath for them equally difficult as weathering those waves. And so you really feel for them, because they're at a loss.

Each day is its own endeavor, brings its own difficulties. And you wonder and you're amazed and you're inspired at how they're able to live each day. Just getting through the day here for them is enormously difficult. They're zombies. They've been cleaning debris now for 11 straight days, many of them working as long as they can stay wake, sleeping just a few hours at night. And all they can do is, like robots, clean away the debris, try and get children to meet their parents, try and clear away the bodies. The bodies themselves, it was so stark a few days in, because the bodies became like debris. There was no humanity in these deaths. And the bodies just had to be cleaned up. And so those people, those individuals at that moment couldn't be seen as such. They just had to be brushed away for the sake of keeping the living alive. And so it's a whole new look on humanity here. And each day brings with it a whole new set of difficulties.

BLITZER: Aneesh, good luck to you. Thanks for all your good work.

RAMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Living the tragedy from the shores of the tsunami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I had a group of about 15 little children between the ages of 2 and 5 all around me, tugging on my legs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Paula Hancocks is in Sri Lanka with he experiences. That's coming up right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: After Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the hardest-hit country, with more than 46,000 people killed.

Covering the death and destruction has been emotionally wrenching, even for experienced reporters.

CNN's Paul Hancocks has been in Sri Lanka. I spoke with her just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Paula, has there been anything in your career that you've done that has adequately prepared you for what you've seen over these past 10 days?

HANCOCKS: Well, Wolf, I think it's certainly safe to say that there's been nothing on this scale. Absolutely nothing compares to this that I've done as a journalist.

As a reporter, you do have to remain objective when you're talking about things. Over here, it is incredibly difficult to remain objective. You are seeing dead bodies which you would see maybe in other stories as well, which you can become fairly detached from if you need to do your job professionally. But it is the survivors that you talk to that really make it very difficult to keep yourself dispassionate.

Some survivors I've been speaking to have lost mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. Some I have spoken to have lost 50 members of their families. You cannot remain that dispassionate when you're talking to these people and you see the look in their eyes. Many people I've spoken to just have dead eyes. They look at me. They almost look through me.

They do not know how to comprehend this. They don't even know how to start dealing with it. So it's the survivor stories that really do get to you and really do make you realize that this is such a huge tragedy. Thousands have died, and it's the fact that thousands more are going to have to deal with trauma for years to come -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, how are you coping, Paula, personally? How do you deal with this?

HANCOCKS: Well, personally, I find the best way is to talk about it, to talk about it with some of my colleagues. We discuss what we've seen. We discuss how we deal with it.

And it's best to talk to people who have been through the same experiences. And I find that, in some of the hospitals, that's what some of the victims were doing as well. They were chatting to each other. And also they were talking to me about their experiences. It does help to talk.

And, obviously, that's one thing that journalists can do. They can certainly talk. And that helps you deal with what you've seen. That helps you process with what you're seeing on a daily basis here. And, of course, in the other way, that helps the survivors as well. If they talk about it, then they can start to comprehend what they're going through and start to handle it.

BLITZER: Has there been one moment, Paula, where you've simply lost it, you've broken down, you couldn't take it anymore, you started to cry?

HANCOCKS: There has, yes.

There was one, actually, just a few hours ago, when I went into one of the refugee camps. And as I came in with one aid organization, we had mattresses and things, some baby food. And as we drove in, everyone rushed the van. That's usually what happens in a refugee camp.

But as I distanced myself over to one side, I had a group of about 15 little children between the ages of 2 and 5 all around me tugging on my legs and asking to take my pen. I gave my Biro, just a normal penalty, to one of the children. And he ran off with it. He was so excited. And al little children ran after him because they were so excited. They had something that they could call their own. He was absolutely delighted that he had this Biro. And it was just the most heart-wrenching moment.

BLITZER: Well, so many heart-wrenching moments. It's a little bit on an upbeat note. I will leave it there.

Paula, thanks for all the important and good work you're doing for us, for our viewers around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: These journalists are doing an incredible job for all of us. And thanks very much.

Up next, two rescues providing a bit of hope to the people in the disaster zone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Listen to these stories of hope. A 23-year-old Indonesian man who spent eight days hanging on to a coconut tree in the Indian Ocean has returned home after being picked up by a cargo ship.

And one of the humpback dolphins we told you about the other day that was dumped into a Thai lagoon by the tsunami has been rescued and returned to the open sea.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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