Transcripts For CNN John King USA 20110312 : vimarsana.com

CNN John King USA March 12, 2011



are miss, but we are certain as we watch these new images come in that that number will climb as the waters recede. some government officials, in fact, quoted in japanese media outlets predicting the death toll at a minimum will pass the 1,000 mark. there's been a little over 18 hours now. let's take a closer look. it's a magnitude 8.9 quake recorded right here off japan's eastern coast. you see the town of sendai. that was closest. tokyo down here. the hashedest hit, this flashing ring here, but vibrations all the way down throughout japan's coastal areas right here. the images are stunning. first the vibrations and the strong earthquake, the strongest on record in japan. then not long after all that shaking, the breathtaking power of the waters unleashed by a 30 foot tsunami. cars and boats, even homes tossed about like toys. look again at these images here. it is just striking the awesome, sobering power of the water and the wreckage and debris is just coming through the destructive forces. only now as these waters start to recede can they get a better sense of the damage in these communities. coastal communities on both sides of the pacific sounded tsunami warnings and alerts, and we did see some major waves and some disruptions and damage in hawaii and later california. alerts remain in place to the south, to south and latin america. chile, for example. the only significant damage is in japan so far, where search and rescue efforts have been complicated by massive power outages and a series of strong aftershocks. >> john, adding to the anxiety is word of the state of the emergency at a japanese nuclear power plant. about 170 miles north of tokyo. the tokyo electric power company says that radioactive substances may have seeped out of a nuclear reactor. reaching levels of more than eight times above normal. meanwhile, japan's nhk network reports that people within a six mile radius of the plant have been ordered to evacuate. cnn's paula hancocks is in osaka, japan, en route to the epicenter. she joins us on the fowl phone, and, paula, it is 18 hours after the quake, and rescue crews are still on their way. give us an idea of the difficulty, the logistical difficulty of just getting there. >> reporter: well, kristie, a number of the air force in the northern and north and eastern parts are cut off. sendai airport, which is the main one in the worst hit area is under water. there are picks of people standing on the roof unable to move, so certainly that is crippling this emergency relief effort. there are other airports that are just starting to open up now. even if it's just partially opened up, and they are reserved for emergency crews and aid agencies, but those are desperate to get the people on the ground. the added issue is the fact that communications are bad. we understand from some people in the area that mobile phones aren't working. you really need a satellite phone to be able to coordinate anything, which may be okay for some of the emergency crew, but it's certainly not okay for the vast majority because they're relying on telecommunications. there really are extra hassles for the teams as they're trying to help those that need it, and, of course, we only have three hours of daylight. much of the night the crews were trying to help and quite simply if it was pitch black and you don't know what's beneath you. it's very difficult to get helicopters in in those conditions. >> also the state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear facility. what is the update on that situation? >> well, the trade minister of japan is that a small radiation could occur at the fukushima nuclear plant. that is according to the kyoto news agency. we understand from that news agency that the radiation levels have been recorded as more than eight times the normal amount. now, we know that there has been the evacuation around the nuclear plant. we understand that there's at least a six mile or ten kilometer zone where people have been evacuated. also, the prime minister has made it his call of japanese prime minister kan in a helicopter this morning. he went straight to that plant to see what was happening knowing that this is a very serious development. he offered to tour the rest of the area to see how bad the damage was. >> okay. paula, thank you very much for that. paula hancocks joining us live from osaka en route to the disaster zone. let's get back to john. >> i want to use our map to show people the location of the nuclear sites, paula and you were just talking about. here's the fukushima site. it is this site here about 170 miles north of tokyo where they are deeply concerned right now. a couple of other facilities are reporting some problems, but officials say this is their top priority right now, and as paula just noted, the release of some radioactive vapors, officials are saying, no big deal, but, obviously, ae huge concern as this plays out. we'll see if they can cool that reactor down. we're also getting some new pictures in from nhk, which has done a marvelous job covering this, and these daytime pictures are helping us get a much better sense of the scope of the devastation and the challenge of the recovery effort. now, 18 hours plus after the devastating quake, and we try to discuss the challenges ahead, let's bring in cnn's -- she's about to travel to the epicenter of the quake also. kim, let's start with the public anxiety. there has to be enormous anxiety anyway. the record quake, the most devastating quake in japan's history, and then on top of that some concerns about this nuclear episode. what's the sense among the people and the sense of the transparency and communication from the government? >> well, let's talk about what exactly i'm seeing. i'm 200 kilometers outside of where the tsunami hit. that sendai region. i can tell you that now it's starting to be quite slow going. roads are cracked. you can start to see buildings have cracks. buildings are compromised. there is no gas. again, no power. very little water. we are seeing people leaving that region either trying to get or simp supplies or simply getting out of there because those areas are damaged. what we're seeing in the various convenience stops or stores are long lines of people. very few supplies on the shelves. we've tried to buy a little bit of food here and there. very little supplies. so what we're seeing even this far out, even 200 kilometers out is people are trying to move further and further out just to get the vital supplies they need for their families. as far as what the sense that you're asking how people are feeling, what i'm gathering is that, you know, people are being relatively calm. no one is speeding here on the highway. people are being quite polite in the stores. there's no pushing or shoving, but there's certainly an elevated concern. there is a low grade anxiety because there have been aftershocks, and we are getting closer and closer to an area that's heavily damaged. >> and as you get closer and closer to the epicenter where not only the quake hit the hardest, but where the tsunami hit the hardest, you mentioned the situation in the stores and the residents and citizens you're encountering. do you see as you make your way there, any evidence of a big response? are you seeing helicopters? are you seeing emergency response teams? are you seeing a response from the government and the disaster relief people of the proportion that you believe based on what you are seeing so far is going to be necessary? >> i think i'm too far out to make a judgment call. we're not seeing anybody, but, again, we are 200 kilometers out. the areas that are hit here, they are damaged, but they're not severely damaged. it's something you see, you know, in a mild quake. you know, we're want seeing, you know, huge gashes in the roads or massive injuries. that's the immediate emergency further in, so my assumption -- and i'm not there yet, but my assumption is that the authorities must be trying to concentrate the immediate rescue for the hardest hit areas. >> we'll stay in touch throughout the hour and the hours ahead as she gets closer and closer to the epicenter not only of where this quake hit the hardest, but, again, with the powerful waves hitting the hardest. please stay safe. we'll stay in touch as you move forward. joining us is a freelance reporter lucy craft, she was in tokyo when the earthquake hit. her son is a student at a high school near the epicenter. she joins us. we're 18 hours plus later, and have you still been unable to get in touch with your son? >> reporter: yeah, unfortunately. the phone lines are still down. my son, of course, has his cell phone, and i haven't been able to get to him by cell phone. i haven't been able to get to anybody at his school. i have his teacher's phone number. she doesn't answer. it's not that she doesn't answer. it's just the phones are not working. it's very upsetting situation. as can you imagine. >> is there any information coming from the government? is there any place you have been able to find any information at all? you just heard our correspondent making her way up there. she's seeing damage still 200 kilometers from there. the silence has to have you in a bit of a state. >> reporter: well, you know, the suspense is killing me, as they say. i just got on the phone to the police station in part of sendai city, which is where my son's school is. since the quake hit in 3:00 in the afternoon, he probably was still at school, and i just talked to the police there, and they said that they hadn't had any reports of students gone missing or been hurt or anything worse than that. they assumed that he had been taken refuge at his school, so i'm hoping that's where he is. >> can they give you any information at all? you mentioned his school. have you been there? is it several stories high? if the waves came through -- we heard inland there have been waves as high as 10 or 12 feet. is it high enough if they had warning in the first areas hit, every -- if they had warning and got upstairs, would that be enough? >> reporter: the school was not near the coast, which is one saving greece. it was quite close to sendai city, which escaped relatively unscathe from what i can gather so far. the building itself, unfortunately, is an old building, but i'm sure they're used to this kind of thing. we have so many earthquakes here. i'm just hoping and praying for the best. >> we will hope and pray with you, and we hope you'll stay in touch with us as you get more information. tell me now about your experience in tokyo. you're a reporter there, and i understand you are at the parliament building, the diet it's called. japan gets earthquakes. you are familiar with earthquakes, but this one felt different? >> yeah, normally when earthquakes hit japan, you just wake up and turnover and go back to sleep or if you are awake already, you kind of look up and say, oh, an earthquake and go back to what you are doing, and that's what we did during our interview, and then all of a sudden the diet member i was talking to said, wait a minute, this is not an ordinary earthquake. we tried to get up and walk around her office, and we couldn't because the shocks were so severe and then we noticed her belongings kind of flying around the room. things were falling off the shelves and what not, and so we evacuated the building like everyone else was doing, and then i wanted to get back on the train and go back to my office, and the trains were stopped. then i came upstairs, and the traffic wasn't moving properly. things were starting to seem not like what we're used to, and i ended up walking back to my office, and i felt strange -- it was one of the strangest scenes i have ever seen after many years of living in tokyo, which is the middle of the day offices, restaurants, shops, completely emptied out. people mulling around the streets. a lot of them wearing white helmets, which you may have seen which are worn during disaster drills. only this wasn't a drill. >> not a drill at all. lucy, help us understand, especially from the perspective if you remember, back to the southeast asia tsunami several years back. one of the early questions, you know, were we getting information right away? were the people who needed help getting the help right away? maybe it's hurricane katrina for many people in the united states and their perspective, and the response of the city or the state or the federal government. from your perspective, as a journalist and as someone who has lived in the region, in terms of the communication, the reaction of the government and the spread of information in japan, give us your sense of how that's going so far. >> there isn't any country in the world that spends as much money, devotes as much energy to disaster prevention as japan. they spend a huge amount of money, tens of billions of dollars they spend on disaster prevention because they have just one natural disaster after another, and it's -- half the people are living on land that is either at sea level or below sea level, so there's a great public emphasis and interest on investing in this. would you never get a mandate for this level of public investment and disaster infrastructure like you have here. if the japanese can't get it right, then one has to not have very much hope. they have sensors planted, you know, hundreds of sensors that are planted to pick up early warnings. this particular quake wasn't picked up early for various reasons, which are just coming to light, but normally you do get a heads-up before a major earthquake is coming. tsunami information is usually quite good. it's broadcast to you on tv. all the tv stations are constantly running tsunami warnings, earthquake warnings as soon as the information is available, which is very soon, and then if you live on the countryside, your often supplied with a wireless radio that has a connection between you and the local office, the local disaster prevention office, and there's all kinds of things they have. they have disaster prevention drills and poolgz and offices and the disaster prevention day. it's a really big undertaking here. >> lucy craft, we appreciate your helping us not only report this story, but get your eyewitness account as well. especially, especially, such a great, thoughtful presentation there at a time when you are under great personal stress trying to wonder about the whereabouts and the health of your son. please keep in touch with us and know you are in our thoughts and prayers, and we hope you get that phone call from him very soon. please take care. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you so much for being with us. lucy was just talking about the warning system. i want to show you a little bit about this. you see the pacific here. indonesia down here with the tsunami hit several years back. i want to show you. there's a network underknees. these purple dots are networks on land or here on the ocean floor, seismic detectors. they detect earthquake activity. then at the sea level there are a whole host of others. this is the japanese system here. these pinkish dots up here. these are actually by the united states out here in cooperation of other partners and other nations as well, and what you have here is on the ocean floor, they detect seismic activity or on laboratoried. you see them in australia oosh across asia here. these detect seismic activity, and then all these buoys they detect the movements of the waves and they send signals to a warning system. when the earthquake hit, a tsunami warning goes immediately in every direction. more on this and how this works and sometimes how it doesn't work, but in this case it appears to have worked quite well as we continue. when we come back, the united states senator's wife traveling in japan. she's in tokyo. her eyewitness account next. somewhere in america, a city comes to life. it moves effortlessly, breathes easily. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener and its population healthier. all to become the kind of city people want to live and work in. somewhere in america, we've already answered some of the nation's toughest questions. and the over sixty thousand people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers. a beautiful steering wheel is great. but only if the dash it's attached to is equally beautiful. so we made sure it was. but what's the point of a beautiful dash if the seats aren't beautiful, too? 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[ male announcer ] accu-chek aviva. born in the usa. look at these pictures. saturday morning now in japan. a little more than 18 hours after a devastating earthquake followed by a punishing tsunami. if you look at these pictures here, people trapped on the roof. that's multi-story building, and they are up on the roof trying to get help. if you look around that building, you can see the debris caused by the quake and the tsunami that followed. at one point we are told that everything, everything but the roof, was under water as the tsunami came through. among those in japan is the wife of u.s. daniel inouye was in toek yes. mrs. rhirano inouye, thank you for joining us. what did it feel like and how did you first know this was different, this was not just another quake in tokyo? >> well, i have been here in tokyo in my capacity of president of the u.s.-japan council, and i brought a large delegation of japanese-american leaders. we were in a hotel. i was in a hotel coming down an escalator when i began to feel the escalator and the building moving. i got outside. i was with another person who lives here in japan, and he said i have never felt an earthquake like this. i realized it was not the normal -- normal occurrence, so we stood by the side of the building and the building continued to shake. i'm originally from southern california, so i have been in earthquakes, and it lasted quite a long time. i think what has happened since then have been the aftershocks. as recently as a few minutes ago. we are continuing to feel the aftershocks. >> and as you feel the aftershocks now, as someone who has this experience, both in the united states and from your trips there, help me get a sense of, number one, were others panicking or citizens of tokyo because they're used to being relatively calm, and in temz of the quality and quantity of information you are getting from the government through news reports, how comfortable are you with the level of that? >> well, i think when the quake hit, there were many people who went outside of the building. i think initially people were very calm, and certainly japan has very high level technology and is prepared to deal with earthquakes, and so their buildings are such that they've been built to withstand that type of tremor, but no one expected it to be the magnitude that it was. i think as time went on and people saw that the trains were shut down and people were unable to get back home, many people walked back home, the impact of the severity of the quake began to hit. i think for younger people, there were many younger people out on the streets of tokyo. they were obviously trying to get home as well. there have been, i think, very good coverage. we've been getting a lot of reports both from the u.s. embassy in tokyo as well as from the government. i was actually scheduled to meet prime minister kan at 6:00 yesterday, and, obviously, that now has changed, but i think that certainly as a country that japan is as well pr

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