hello. i m abby philip in washington. a desperate search is under way for survivors after a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck turkey and syria. the death toll is now more than 2500 and aid from across the world is pouring in. the aftermath of this is catastrophic. this was the strongest earthquake to hit that area in more than 100 years, and it struck while nearly everyone was asleep. hundreds of people this hour are still believed to be trapped. massive high rises reduced to rubble, as more than 50 aftershocks some as strong as 7.5 magnitude, make matters even worse for rescue crews. one survivor capturing this horrific moment that the building collapsed. floor after floor falling as people run from a massive debris cloud. nearby, another collapse. look at this. and video of dramatic rescues are also coming in. this child pulled from the wreckage. crews are now hoping to uncover more miracles in the rubble. cnn s scott mcclain will lead us off here. scott, a massive r
into the united states, was there an open could it have been shot down earlier? i think so, abby, but there are certain things you have to consider when you look at this because for one thing, you ve got this timeline here. norad detected this on the 28th of january. and the president wasn t briefed until tuesday the 31st. by that time a lot of paths had been crossed right there let s go to alaska where the first sightings occurred and there s some reporting that the balloon actually overflew shimya island here in the aleutians. this particular island has a radar station associated with it, so that would have been the first installation that the balloon would have been able to take a look at from a surveillance perspective. then the path was around this, going up the aleutians and possibly like this. we have an air force base right here. that air force base does have f-22s stationed right there, so
protecting the personnel and ire craft themselves. what s the word about why this is proving so difficult from a surveillance perspective to find these girls? it s a combination of factors. one is geography. it s a large area. we don t even know for sure where the girls are. but the guesstimates have it roughly at the size of west virginia. that s so it s the size of the area. number two, it s the topography. as you know this is dense jungle. lots of cover from trees. and we believe the girls have been broken up into small groups. it will be very difficult to see them from the air. it doesn t mean we re not going to try but it s going to be very, very hard. of course, you know, you have weather issues there in that part of the world. so you always have to factor that in. look, we think the girls are dispursed. they re in tough terrain. it s a wide, wide area. and so far we just haven t seen any indication but it doesn t mean we re not going to keep trying. if you spot them what s
perspective. it doesn t mean you have to act. it means you have to be prepar d ed. be aware that you may walk into a physical location and there will be somebody who does not agree with you, who s already posted it on the web and though they may not be violent, there s an opportunity here for them to get in your face and you need to be knowledgeable. have forethought about that. have a methodology to deal with that if you need to. usually talking them down works great. we re not going to get into the pl place from a surveillance perspective. they will look for things that are of importance, but there s no way the public police departments can do this alone. there s no way that the fbi can do this alone. private individuals, you have the ability to do it. it s free. it s the internet. it s out there. use it. chief, how real is the threat