While the 'Thought Engineers' of AC360 would have a selective memory; those of us that appreciate excellance in journalism recall very clearly, it was Aaron Brown that lead the teams into The Asian Tsunami. While 'the team' put together a comprehensive view of the devastation both physical and human; Aaron took the toughtest assignment in Banda Aceh where a militia was still alive and well post tsunami.
Aaron Brown also lead 'the team' to Rome for the Pope's passing and funeral onto the anchoring of the choice of a new Pope. Aaron anchored the entire months of presentations of Katrina and Rita. It was only when the news became 'routine' again would he be leaving us to an inferior news anchor still today.
Aaron Brown: (on camera): And what strikes you coming here is this. In Thailand, it was the tourist resorts, the fishing villages right by the sea that were destroyed. Here, we're talking about a capital city of a province. We are four kilometers inland and just look at it. As far as the eye can see, it is destroyed.
(voice-over): Television deals in the human senses of sight and sound, but it is an inadequate medium when it comes to conveying what it's really like here. This is a city pervaded by death, the sight of it, yes, but also the smell of it. Death is everywhere. Today in Banda Aceh, you cannot escape it.
(on camera): Everywhere you drive in Banda Aceh, you come across scenes like this here, teams of workers pulling out bodies from the river that flows through the center of Banda Aceh. We've been here 15 minutes or so and we've seen them pull out five bodies. And this, of course, is 10 days after the waves struck.
(voice-over): Help is here, of course, but seldom can anywhere have needed it as much as this place, this city, or, rather, what remains of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And, once again, that was Mike Austin of Britain's ITV reporting. Back to Aaron now, looking at some of that same devastation in Banda Aceh. I guess, Aaron, one of the things you were talking about earlier this evening that really struck me -- and it's really hard to understand this -- that you're staying at a point that is a mile and a half inland from the ocean.
BROWN: Yes. It's -- I mean, again, I think, I would just echo everything that Mark Austin said. The difference between what happened here and what happened in Thailand and Sri Lanka is that it isn't just the coast, that we're a mile and a half from the coast here and look what's in front of us. And believe me when I tell you that, if you were to look the other way, it doesn't look any prettier. When Mark was reporting that, I knew exactly where in town he was talking about, four miles in, about 3 1/2 miles from the ocean . And it's just devastated. And the aftershocks continue. We were standing here, what, 2 1/2 hours ago, I guess, and another one rolled through. There was one earlier this morning. How that must traumatize the people who lived through it, the peril they must feel. In any case, we'll take a break. When we come back, this disaster as seen through the lens, as we often do, of some of the world's great still photographers. CNN's special coverage continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: That wraps it up from New York for me this evening. And, Aaron, you'll get to close out the hour here.
BROWN: Thank you very much. There is this kind of dead look that takes over the faces of people when they've grieved at this scale, as if there is nothing else inside.This hour tomorrow looks at the special plight of children in this disaster. We hope you'll join us for that.Until then, good night for all of us.
January 6
Nowhere is the situation worse than it is in Banda Aceh. And that's where we find Aaron Brown tonight -- Aaron.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We are outside a refugee camp, very much a makeshift refugee camp that is being run by university students and their professors. Jeliteng Pribadi was an economics professor two weeks ago and he's a refugee camp director today. And he's with us. My Indonesian isn't very good, so we'll do this in English, as best we can.
JELITENG PRIBADI, REFUGEE CAMP DIRECTOR: OK.
BROWN: They found you, in a sense. People flooded here, because we're on relatively high ground, and you decided you had to do something, basically, right?
PRIBADI: Yes, you're right.When the tsunami came here, in the very beginning of the day, like, first until the fourth day, we just helped people inside the city, take the dead body, other some people still alive to the doctors, to the hospitals. And after the fourth day, start from the fifth day, we still to be focused, who we need to help? Do we still in there in the city to collect the dead body or we just help the people who still alive?
BROWN: Just a couple -- how much better are things now than they were a week ago here?
PRIBADI: Here. It's just around 1,500, but now it's well into 2,000 people here.
BROWN: You have medicine enough here?
PRIBADI: Right now, we have so many donation from other countries, from other organizations, like from Mercy, from International Red Cross. But, in the very beginning of the day, until -- the first week here, we still have no -- even for like Betadine, alcohol, we have not enough medical.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Just a final question. Can you imagine a time when things will be normal again?
PRIBADI: No. I don't think we will have normal condition in one or two months after the tsunami. And even for six months, I don't think we will have normal condition again like before.
BROWN: Thank you.
PRIBADI: OK. You're welcome.
BROWN: Thank you. One of the tasks here is to figure out, literally figure out who is here, who survived it, who did not. Foremost among that task is reuniting children and parents. UNICEF has set up an office here. Atika Shubert -- it's literally across the street. Atika Shubert has been over there to report on their efforts pretty much.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron. UNICEF feels it is very important that children are able to stay, if not with their immediate family, with their extended family, or at least with the community they feel comfortable with. So one of the things we're doing is trying to identify and register all the tens of thousands of displaced children. We followed them around yesterday.And here's what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT (voice-over): Children play amid the wreckage while a government teams picks its way through. Their mission, to identify children whose parents have gone missing in the disaster. Together with United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, the government is trying to register tens of thousands of displaced children in the hope they can be reunited with family.
ANANDA MELVILLE, UNICEF: It's to try to prevent not only the issue of trafficking of children, but also to prevent very well- meaning people taking the children and putting them in institutions in other countries or in other parts of Indonesia where -- and without -- and later it could be very hard to find them. S
HUBERT: In each camp, the faces of the missing are plastered everywhere, most of them, children. Parents line up at UNICEF, clutching pictures of their sons and daughters.
(on camera): In this camp, there are makeshift shelters and there are makeshift families. In these two tents, a hobbled together community of neighbors who have lost their homes, mothers who have lost their children, and children who have lost their parents.
(voice-over): Twelve-year-old Igbal was registered with UNICEF by Khaidir Stamsul. They seem like father and son. But it was only by chance that Igbal was away from his family, playing near Khaidir's home when the tsunami struck. It saved Igbal's life, but his family is gone. Khaidir has taken him in. "We're his parents as long as he's in this camp," he tells us. "We don't allow him to be left alone in silence, and my kids like him. Honestly, I couldn't give him away now even if someone wanted to adopt him."While other children play, Igbal seems pensive. He says he wants to be a soldier when he grows up, not a doctor, as Khaidir suggests. The reason is understandable. "I don't want to do that. I'm afraid of the ghosts from all of those dead bodies," he says. Despite their smiling faces, the ghosts that will surely haunt these children for years to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT: Now, it's hope against hope to try and reunite these families, Aaron. There are so many orphans and so many parents looking for missing children. But the good news is, a lot of these Acehnese communities are taking in these orphans, so at least they're not completely on their own.
BROWN: Do the aid workers feel that -- here, we'll raise that up just a little bit.
SHUBERT: Sorry.
BROWN: Do the aid workers feel that the world's attention will stay here long enough to get the work done?
SHUBERT: Well, that's certainly what they're hoping. There's a very desperate need here. And one of the things that UNICEF has pointed out is that the reason why it's so important to register and identify these children is because one of the problems down the line could be something like child trafficking. This is a situation where traffickers exploit the situation, exploit those children. And it's important to identify, register and get those children into communities that are safe for them before the traffickers get to them.
BROWN: It's actually -- it's one of the difficult parts of the story, is to know how much of that is actually happening and how much that is just fear of it happening -- Paula.
ZAHN: Aaron, I wanted to ask you what else you could share with us about the conditions at these camps. You spent the better part of the day at the one you are reporting from now.
BROWN: Were you able to hear? The condition of the camps generally?
SHUBERT: The conditions are a lot better now than they were. Just when I first got here, actually, a week ago, it was quite chaotic. Now there is certainly order. Sanitation is a lot better. But it still needs to be improved. The risk of disease is still there. And so a lot of help still needs to come in.
BROWN: Just to give you an idea, they -- we're, what, 10, 11 days since the tsunami hit. They just got sanitation facilities at this camp yesterday. So, it's -- it's pretty rugged living here, but they are living. And they are being fed. And that's encouraging for them -- Paula.
ZAHN: Aaron and Atika, thanks.Coming up, the world responds with an outpouring of aid. How marine muscle is playing a big part in relief operations. Then, born of the tsunami, a tiny child brings happiness and hope where there was none.
January 7
ZAHN: A little boy with a giant hole in his heart. In Banda Aceh, as in many other areas, the cleanup after the tsunami is beginning to show some signs of progress. But even with a massive effort, getting lives and livelihood back on track is not easy. That story when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: And welcome back to our special report, "Turning the Tide."My colleague Aaron Brown joins us from Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Aaron, you have been telling us over the last couple of days how complicated it is to distribute this aid. Have you seen any progress from where you stand?
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know, look, I mean, you measure progress in funny ways. And every helicopter that goes out with water and medicine and food is progress. If you're looking for some big sea change, no. But another village gets fed or another refugee camp gets set up and food gets delivered, another wound gets healed, and that -- you measure progress in a kind of simple or small way. But it's -- in fact, nobody knows that better than Dr. Cesar Campo, who is a surgeon, a Spanish surgeon. He's with the Spanish medical team that works here.When you walk up and down the line here, the Aussies, the Americans, everybody says, talk to the Spaniards, because they are the ones who have really done the work. And the doc here has been doing the work. What kind of wounds principally and injuries are you seeing?
DR. CESAR CAMPO, SURGEON: Well, we are seeing very dirty wounds, because they are people that was affected by the tsunami. And then we are the first attendant that are looking for them, you know? Then those wounds are very, very dirty, very infected. And we have to do a work for cleaning, for debriding. It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BROWN: All you can -- is it right that all you can really try to do is try and stabilize the patient and hope for the best?
CAMPO: Yes. Our first work is to stabilize the person and give the first aid here in Banda Aceh. Afterwards, the persons can go to hospitals in Medan, in Banda Aceh, or can go to the refugee camps after our work.
BROWN: Just a quick final question, Doc. What are their chances, generally? Do you think most of them will make it, some of them will make it? What do you think? Will they live?
CAMPO: Well, no, I think all of them will -- won't do, won't live, because there are many people very, very ill. We try to do our best with them with our work, cleaning, debriding, fixing fractures, using antibiotics and so, then -- but we don't know when another doctor or us will review them.
BROWN: I know you've got a lot of work to do. You have got a patient in there now, Doc. Muchos gracias, senor.
CAMPO: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Thank you.
CAMPO: Thank you.
BROWN: We appreciate it. We were talking a moment ago about how you measure progress here. A helicopter goes out, that's progress. You see a heavy piece of machinery come into the city to start clearing the rubble, it's a -- the rubble, the mess here is so vast, it doesn't seem like much to start clearing a block. But it is a small measure of progress. Atika Shubert was out on the bridge that we were broadcasting from the other day, and she, too, found small measures of progress, small measures of normalcy.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron. What we find is that people are starting to get back to normal life, but it's going to take a long time. There just isn't the kind of equipment needed to clear the area quickly. So, we did is, we went to some of the areas that were hardest hit in Banda Aceh to see how they were dealing with the clear-up. And this is what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT (voice-over): Friday prayer in the great mosque of Banda Aceh, the first area to be cleared of debris and bodies. The faithful come to pray. Soldiers stand on guard. Signs of life returning to normal. In the market, shops still in ruins, but order has been restored. Residents line up patiently for food and for water dispensed by Australian soldiers.
(on camera): Residents still live amid the wreckage. Heavy moving equipment is hard to come by and it may take months for any of this to even begin to be cleared.
(voice-over): Boats are still marooned in the center of town more than a kilometer inland. The most spectacular wrecks have become something of a tourist attraction for visiting aid workers. Here we found Mohammad Amwar Illas (ph), a fisherman watching over his family's boat jammed atop a bridge. He was fishing four kilometers offshore in another boat when the tsunami struck, feeling nothing but the rise and fall of a large wave. He came back to this. His home and his parents gone, he focuses on salvaging what he has left. "If I can, I'll build another boat. The engine still works," he says. "We will have destroy the rest of this to get the engine. I just don't think anything else is usable." Mohammad figures it will take six months for his life to return to normal. He waits every day for a cleanup crew to arrive, but they're not stopping here today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT: Now, there are still some more encouraging signs this morning, Aaron. Actually, supermarkets are starting to open and that's a good thing, but it is going to think many months yet.
BROWN: Thank you. Every day, another piece of heavy machinery moves in. Every day, the area inches towards recovery. But you're talking about three months before, four months maybe, before bodies are all cleared out of the city and really years before anything approaching what was -- and what was wasn't all that great -- but what was is recreated again -- Paula.
ZAHN: Aaron, we're reading here that in the province where you're spending most of your time, they're beginning to see outbreaks of cholera and malaria. What can you tell us about what you've seen in the refugee camps you have visited?
BROWN: Well, Atika may weigh in here, too. You know, the conditions are ripe. I mean, you have all of the ingredients for a horrible outbreak of disease. You've got a lot of standing water. The water table, without getting too technical here, is so high that it's just -- standing water is all over the place, mosquitoes all over the place. And so, all of the things that create a health disaster are in place. And while there are actually a lot of doctors here, there's not necessarily -- I'm trying to think of the best way to say this -- there's not necessarily a system set up to get patient to doctor. And so cholera spreads very quickly. And if that were to happen, then -- you've got the worst disaster that anyone can imagine and that would only make it worse.
ZAHN: Well, we hope things improve there, given the speeding up of the distribution, as you've talked about.Atika, Aaron, thank you so much.
