good morning. a tragedy of unimaginable scale. more than 17,000 people have now died as time is running out to save survivors in the earthquake. breaking overnight, pennsylvania senator john fetterman, recovering from a stroke, has been admitted to the hospital. an update on his condition. president biden addressing concerns about his age and why he hasn t yet med made a decision about running for re-election. lawmakers getting a classified briefing on the chinese spy balloon and new cnn reporting about who knew what and when. the p word, the b word, a word have been entered into the congressional word as the republican efforts to expose those at the top of twitter has take an surprising turn. cnn this morning starts right now. i m glad you could join us. keep this number in mind. 17,000. 17,000, not just talking numbers, that s people, right? and that s where we are going to begin. we begin in turkey and syria where 17,000 victims, that death toll is climbing
unscathed, perhaps with cracks, others tilted at an angle, others completely destroyed. we went to a street whereby czarly it seemed every building in that had lost its bottom three floors, but indeed sunk down and was still standing. one of those buildings there was a rush of medical workers, a moment of elation, people thinking possibly within that building they may have found somebody alive and some of the cavernous spaces that get caused when rubble collapses in a certain way. sadly, minutes later they pulled out an 8-year-old girl who had perished. her mother there to put her on to the ambulance, move her away. but these bodies over here as they stand have some of them marked with owner identified, others simply are going to join the large numbers here of people whose relatives may have perished as well. a city of this size heavily populated with syrian refugees