CNN 20: Earthquake in Turkey, August 17, 1999
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Have a look "CNN 20." Back after this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The earthquake struck in the middle of the night, precisely two minutes past 3:00 a.m., when the world, their own homes, caved in. So many were crushed to death in their own beds.</s>JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was just unlike anything I had seen, where not only were buildings collapsed everywhere but entire towns were collapsed. People were truly frantic about digging for lost relatives and friends and trying to find friends, and a lot of people were crowding into the area. At a certain point, the hope of finding anybody underneath the debris really was diminished, and people would cling to the stories that came out about the miraculous rescues, where someone would be pulled out of the debris. I think that's one of the hardest things is when you get emotionally involved in these stories, and I think you can't help but watch some of these personal tragedies and not project yourself or your family into this sort of thing. What would I do if I were in this circumstance? what if it was my relatives that was missing? You find often after a story like the earthquake of Turkey that I'll get back to home base and really have an emotional outpouring because of what I've seen. But it takes a while afterwards, when I start sort of running over in my mind what I've just seen, and the immensity of it, sometimes it can be devastating afterwards.