CBS Evening News open - 2004-12-31

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] holidays. See your Lincoln Mercury

[0:01] dealer today.

[0:03] >> From all of us at News Channel 5, happy

[0:06] holiday.

[0:08] >> Tsunami survivors say goodbye to the

[0:10] loved ones they lost as the death toll

[0:13] hits 150,000. The US pledges more money

[0:17] and the race is on to get life-saving

[0:19] relief where it's needed. Also tonight,

[0:22] hell week for holiday travelers

[0:24] separated from their luggage Christmas

[0:26] Eve. Some still looking for it. New

[0:29] Year's Eve. And one last look at 2004.

[0:33] The sights, the fights, and the bites.

[0:46] This is the CBS Evening News with Dan

[0:49] Rather.

[0:51] >> And good evening. Dan is off tonight.

[0:52] I'm John Roberts. The new year has

[0:54] arrived in southern Asia and with it a

[0:56] numbing new count of the dead from the

[0:58] tsunami. The United Nations now

[1:00] estimates

[1:02] 150,000 people in a dozen countries have

[1:05] died. More aid is arriving in the

[1:07] disaster zone. The first 100 tons of

[1:09] food, water, and body bags. President

[1:13] Bush today announced a 10-fold increase

[1:15] in US aid to $350 million. Some

[1:19] estimates say the death toll could reach

[1:21] 200,000. Indonesia fears more than

[1:24] 100,000 deaths there alone. About 7,000

[1:28] foreigners are still missing, including

[1:30] 2 to 3,000 Americans. In Thailand, some

[1:34] vacationers were at this beach on Phuket

[1:36] when the tsunami hit without warning

[1:38] last Sunday. Today in Thailand, CBS News

[1:41] correspondent Barry Peterson reports.

[1:44] It's one funeral after another.

[1:49] Across Thailand today, the bells told

[1:52] for those lost to the sea. At virtually

[1:55] every Buddhist temple in Phuket,

[1:59] there were funerals and cremations every

[2:01] few minutes. Thai tradition dictates

[2:04] that the dead be buried before the new

[2:06] year begins. But it is not just lives

[2:09] lost.

[2:11] It is also livelihoods. Thousands who

[2:14] depend on fishing have no boats for

[2:16] their work. people who supported their

[2:18] families on an income of maybe $10 a

[2:21] day. And even if they could work, there

[2:24] is no market.

[2:27] People will not buy seafood. M told us

[2:30] they're afraid the fish have been eating

[2:32] the bodies that washed out to sea.

[2:35] So this spry 68-year-old fisherman is

[2:38] trying to make ends meet by turning his

[2:40] motorbike into a taxi. But with so many

[2:43] tourists fleeing the island, his single

[2:46] customer today was this reporter. He

[2:49] took us to his tiny fishing village,

[2:51] population a thousand. Here, not one

[2:54] person died because they heeded the

[2:57] first ominous sounds of the ocean's

[2:59] growing wrath that Apached described to

[3:02] us as a low moaning.

[3:06] And then nature provided its own tsunami

[3:09] warning. When the birds started to

[3:11] squawk and scream, the villagers knew

[3:14] something was terribly wrong. That it

[3:16] was time to run for their lives.

[3:20] Today, some villagers are rebuilding.

[3:23] But recovery cannot really begin until

[3:25] the grieving ends.

[3:29] Tonight, temples are open for a nation

[3:31] in mourning. Tens of thousands are

[3:34] joining in a single prayer that those

[3:37] who died so violently will find their

[3:40] peace in heaven. Barry Peterson, CBS

[3:43] News, Phuket, Thailand.

[3:46] >> Of the estimated 5 million people

[3:48] displaced by the tsunami, about 1

[3:50] million are in the island nation of Sri

[3:52] Lanka. Correspondent Alan Pizzy reports

[3:55] on the struggle for recovery there. The

[3:58] accurate smoke of roadside fires is

[4:00] replacing the smell of rotting bodies, a

[4:02] way to get rid of trash and the threat

[4:04] of disease at the same time. The

[4:06] recovery stage has begun in Sri Lanka

[4:08] and it will be a long, dirty and arduous

[4:11] process.