bonda acha quake, what happened on the third day was a major rain event. a lot of rain came down in some of the areas where people were literally trying to survive. the survivors that were under the rubble but that were still trapped in maybe some pocks of air, some places that were safe, they used that rainwater to drink. and that drinking water, that just little bit of liquid back into their bodies allowed their bodies to survive one or two more days. you don t think about when you re back to almost caveman ability that you think just drinking just give me a little bit of water as rainwater and i can survive just a little bit longer. what a story. this is going to be the next part of the story and hopefully the next part will not be a meltdown at that nuclear facility. a lot more on that part of the story coming up. chad, don t go too far away. much more of our coverage of the breaking news out of japan right after this.
just a few minutes ago, japanese officials raised the confirmed death toll from the earthquake and tsunami to 689. another 639 people are officially listed as missing. 1,570 people are reported injured. that s the human toll. those numbers are going to go up, i can assure you. but here s an example of the physical devastation. take a look at these pictures of an airport and what is now the disaster zone and compare these pictures. compare it to what the same airport looks like after the quake and the tsunami. this is after. you can see it there. the earthquake clearly couldn t have hit at a worse time. this is after we showed you before. i want to go back. this is the airport in sendai. you can see this is after. you can see the devastation, the tarmac, all the water there. if you go back and take a look at the before, you see an
airport that s in very good shape with planes getting ready to take off. the earthquake certainly couldn t have come at a worse time for japan s economy. etc. government is carrying a huge, huge debt load. the nation has been in and out of recession. just like the united states, it s reeling from the spike in oil prices. cnn s mary snow has been taking a closer look at the quake s economic aftershocks. mary, what are you finding out? reporter: with so much uncertainty now surrounding one of the nuclear power plants, things could change dramatically. it s impossible to know the scope of the economic impact. japan is the world s third largest economy. it s a major exhort of cars and consumer-like electronics and already automakers have had to halt production at some of their factories. sony has six factories in the northern part of japan that s been hit. but economists say the damage to the economy would have been much worse if tokyo, with a population of 36 million, was closer to the
the quake in new zealand were flashing through my mind. we were not really sure what to do. at first, i thought it was just normal. my teacher was really scared and i said, it s okay, it s okay. as it got bigger and stronger, then i started to get scared, too. we went to the hallway, ducking down and i think we were just kind of waiting to see if we should go out or if it was going to settle down. i didn t really think the building was going to collapse. but i thought if this building collapses, what are we going to do? you sent us a picture of a lot of empty shelves. we think everything is relatively normal in tokyo. but i m hearing from you that the stores are running out of food, flashlight, water. what s going on in tokyo? it is relatively normal. i think last night there must have been something on the news about a power outage and just in case if the water gets contin
japan. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. captions by vitac www.vitac.com let s beginning with the breaking news right now at that nuclear power plant, a state of emergency is in effect for three reactors at these nuclear power facilities, the same place where an explosion today injured four people. as we said, there are conflicting reports about a meltdown in one of the reactors. a meltdown is a catastrophic failure of the reactor core with a polish for a widespread release of radiation. cnn s anna coren is in sendai, a port city closest to the quake s epicenter. a city of about 1 million people, it was devastated, though, by the tsunami. anna is joining us now. anna, tell us about these two most recent aftershocks that you ve just experienced. reporter: wolf, we have