assistance to those affected. first thing we should say, the u.s. navy, which has a very substantial presence in japan, of course, at this hour says they do believe all their personnel are accounted for. minor damage to some u.s. navy facilities in japan as far as they can tell right now. let s move ahead to what the military is doing in that region, and you ll forgive me. i m going to read some information to you that we ve just gotten in. a number of u.s. navy ships at this hour getting under way. the uss essex, which is in malaysia, the u.s. navy telling us is making preparations to depart malaysia as early as tonight. they want to get out of the way of any problems. the u.s. says blue ridge, which arrived in singapore this morning is now onloading, putting disaster and humanitarian relief supplies on the blue ridge in singapore, making preparations to depart singapore and head to the
japan deal with this crisis. for example, the aircraft carrier uss ronald reagan was already heading to that area, but it was supposed to do a training mission in korea. it is now steaming as fast as possible to the waters off honchu, japan. the uss tore tooinga has landing craft on board. it s going korea and getting combat helicopters and getting back as soon as possible. the uss essex has about 2,000 marines leaving malaysia on its way as well. all right, chris lawrence joining us live from california. we will have much more ahead of the aftermath of that massive earthquake in japan. much more right after this. [ male announcer ] blue-blooded. cold. [ clock ticking ] happy anniversary. [ male announcer ] what happened to luxury? where did all the personality go?
so, a number of u.s. navy warships are assembling and steaming toward japan. let s run it down for everybody so you can see the scope of the response which actually began to be assembled in the overnight hours. it starts with the uss ronald reagan one of the big u.s. navy carriers in the western pacific making its way to japan. the other ships also headed in that direction, uss essex in malaysia and uss blue ridge in singapore, and also two more ships in the southern pacific. what they are trying to do is to steam toward japan. they have held koericopters on and disaster supplies and amphibious land ing landing equ
help. the navy, especially in the last decade has really taken on the new mission which is a global force for good, to provide humanitarian and disaster relief and we are well positioned to do so in japan because as you said we have a major naval presence there but because the u.s. navy can sail the 7 seas, it is within hours of most countries to be able to provide this. we are the first responders in most crises and for example, there is a ship input region, near malaysia, the uss essex, which is an amphibious ship and, they would treat injured marines on board, and they have hundreds of hospital beds and doctors and medics and they have heavy-lift helicopters that can fly into that region, deliver supplies and deliver medical equipment, and deliver food. and they have landing craft which can do the same thing and can evacuate people and bring them on the ship and they have