Seeking Children At Water's Edge

"I've been with UNICEF for 10 years, and I've seen a lot of pretty terrible things, but it was horrifying. I've never seen anything as dramatic, as broad in its impact. (Not only) the number of people dead, but the number of people affected. I've just never seen anything like it."

The stunning words are those of UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, just back from a tour of areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka pummeled by the tsunamis and earthquake.

She shared her recollections with The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm.

Is there any one thing that sticks with her in particular?

"What I remember (most) is actually one of my first stops in Sri Lanka. I went to the beach area. Everything was devastated. There were hardly any sounds; that was something also. There was no sound of people moving. But there were about five people standing right down by the water and I went down and, with somebody to interpret, I asked them what they were doing there, because they were just standing there. There were two men and three women. And they said they were waiting for their children to come back, right at the water's edge. It was just haunting to me."

Bellamy tells Storm many children are in makeshift refugee camps, and that had made the task of determining their status a bit easier.

"By having these camps," she explained, "we're doing it with the governments. One of the interesting things about this crisis is that it's huge, but it's in a part of the world where there are operating governments, and so the governments are taking the lead. We're tying to register the children: Have they lost parents? One or more? Do they have an extended family member that could take care of them? These are countries with long extended-family traditions."

Adoption, Bellamy reports, "isn't a viable option right now. Undoubtedly, there will be the need for some adoption down the line, although probably mostly within the countries themselves, keeping children in their own communities and their own cultures. But it is premature right now. First of all, we have to find out, do they have family members? If they have family members, that's probably the best."

To help restore something of a sense of normalcy to children's lives, the Sri Lankan government says it wants to reopen schools Jan. 20.

Asked by Storm how realistic that is, Bellamy responded, "It's a big task, but it probably is the best thing that could happen for the children, without question. We're helping and others are helping.

"You don't have to have a formal school building. Many of the buildings are destroyed. Many of the people who have been displaced are living in school buildings, if they still exist. Tents (could be used). We have something called school-in-a-box, which is not a school, but is a lot of the materials. You can get started again. (You have to) find the teachers. A lot of the teachers have also been killed. But you can get some started again. So I don't think that date is unrealistic."