Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Rescuers Race To Find Survivors In Nepal Days After Catastrophic Flood; Trump Announces Deal To Secure Venezuelan Oil; 90 Americans Among Missing After Massive Nepal-China Flood; Storms, New Lakes Threaten Flood Zone; Jury In Clancy Murder Trial Ends Day Two Of Deliberations; New Drone Video Shows Homes Buried In Mud In Hard-Hit Nepali Valley; Inside The Teepee Capital Of the World. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired August 29, 2026 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:00:00]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Officials said the flames were fully contained Thursday after burning more than 2,000 acres.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

WHITFIELD: All right. Hello, again, everyone, and thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

We continue to follow breaking news out of Nepal and the frantic search for survivors along the Nepali-Chinese border following catastrophic flash flooding. CNN's Anderson Cooper just arrived there in Nepal and CNN's Hanako Montgomery has been reporting on the ground for the last few days there.

Anderson, to you, you know, the death toll continues to rise, but we are seeing some rescues which are miraculous and amazing. What more can you tell us?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. That's right. Some 3,000 people still missing. And that number may rise. It's -- that number has been rising over the last several days. It may still continue to go up. They identified some 900 people who are maybe trapped in a hydro power plant. One of 14 that have been impacted by this knocked offline.

Search and rescue operations are trying to target those people. They did rescue several hundred people from other hydropower plants. More -- as you said, more than 600, some 670 people right now are known to have dead -- to have died but that number is certainly going to rise.

A little bit of good news yesterday and the army in Nepal put this video out just today. They rescued -- they found a 6-year-old girl buried in mud, buried in rubble. I want to start to show you that video. And then you'll see how she is today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(RESCUERS SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: That was Friday. Saturday they released other video and you're seeing some of it in a moment of her being fed. Finally she was able to talk. Finally, Saturday, they say her name is Manisha. She says she's 6 years old. There's no information, though, about what may have happened to her family. And obviously so many people here are still missing.

Hanako Montgomery has been covering this now for days, reaching some of the most worse off areas, hardest hit areas.

Hanako, talk about what you've been seeing the last day or two.

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson. Today we spent the day in Devighat, which is a town right by the river where we saw, I mean, homes half covered in mud and what was left of people's lives just completely strewn in the debris. And we were following the Nepali army to find any remaining bodies that might need to be extracted from that debris, from that mud.

And also today, we spoke to a father who had just gotten news that his 5-year-old daughter was found among those dead. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Here in Nepal's Devighat destruction stretches for miles. Daily life has grounded to a halt here, replaced instead by a steady stream of police and dogs sniffing for any bodies.

And actually, just moments ago, they did find one. We, of course, can't show it to you, but they told us that because it was so badly decomposed, they couldn't even identify who it was.

(Voice-over): Downstream workers are digging a mass grave. But the hundreds of bodies that have washed ashore, delivered by the truckload. Some are so heavily waterlogged, workers struggle under their weight. And among these bodies is this 5-year-old girl. Serena's family said she was on her way to school when the flood swept her bus away.

[15:05:04]

We spoke to her father, Rajkumar (PH), by phone. He barely survived and is now stranded with help out of reach.

When did you learn, sir, that your daughter was missing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I was working and I called immediately after I escaped. I was still hoping that my daughter was alive. One of the girls who tried saving her told me she wasn't able to hold her and the flood swept her away.

MONTGOMERY: I can't imagine the pain you must be feeling right now. How are you dealing with this immense tragedy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): My dream was always to educate my daughter so she could be successful in life. That's why I worked so hard. But my dream for her hasn't come true.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): But Rajkumar says he can't identify her body with no money or means to confirm that his only child is now gone. Numbers can't describe the human cost of this tragedy, a pain shared by too many here.

Sudeep Nepal lost his business in the flood and his home, the one he's lived in for years.

How long do you think it's going to take for you to rebuild all of this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is not possible to stay here. I think we have to leave this place.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Sudeep barely made it out alive when he saw the flood rushing toward his town, he said, like a tsunami. He ran up a nearby mountain where he filmed these videos. He said all he had was a T-shirt and sandals, but luckily his whole family made it out in time. He shows us inside his home, where furniture and a bathroom once stood are now tree branches, ropes and animal carcasses that the river brought in.

Now, more than three days after the flood swept through the valley, the chances of finding trapped survivors alive are getting slimmer. Many of these operations are now becoming search and recovery, a mounting toll of heartbreak for thousands of families.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MONTGOMERY (on-camera): And, Anderson, after covering this disaster for four days now, it feels as though it's touched everyone's lives up here in the mountains. I mean, even if it's not their family members, it might be their neighbors, people they lived in the same --

COOPER: I think we lost contact with Hanako. Extraordinary reporting from her. Very difficult to get to a lot of these areas, particularly further and further up the river. We're going to have a lot more from here, obviously, in our continuing coverage over the next few days.

Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: Yes. And Anderson, obviously, you know, roads impassable. I mean, you flew in, so, you know, talk to me about the availability of the airstrips so that when daylight comes, the kind of air assets that are able to get in the air and assist in whatever way they can, whether it's, you know, plucking people or delivering people to help or maybe even it's trying to get equipment or sustenance in.

COOPER: Yes. I mean, I flew on a commercial plane through Doha early this morning and a large part of the flight was empty actually. So there was a search and rescue crew from South Korea who was coming in on that flight. Others were just tourists, people who live here coming in the flight, and some people coming to try to find family members as well. There are obviously a lot of helicopters here, military, private ones

that have been taking part in search and rescue operations, that have been delivering supplies. So they have air assets. Obviously, though, getting really heavy equipment in is a big priority to try to get these and try to get these roads open. And that is a very slow process, a very difficult process. But once the roads are open, you're really going to see a lot more in terms of access to some of these remote areas.

WHITFIELD: And then, Anderson, tell us more about this wall. We know that, you know, Will Ripley is reporting. He was able to show, you know, this wall of pictures where people are looking for, you know, family members. They'll put pictures up of relatives or people they know who are missing. And then, you know, gruesomely, there are also images of bodies. And people are hoping that other, you know, folks can recognize them or identify them.

You know, tell us a little bit more about where this is and what kind of activity is there.

COOPER: Yes. You know, we've seen this in New York after 9/11. I remember being there. The wall of the missing.

[15:10:01]

We've seen it in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. It is a grim reality in the early days of something like this where there is so little information, where people -- communications are cut off and people are just desperate to try to find out what has happened to my father or my mother or my grandmother or my child or my whole family.

And so at hospitals, any point of gathering, people will try to put up missing posters with phone numbers, descriptions, photographs of their loved ones. So you see those outside the hospital at the morgue, which is also part of the hospital complex. There's a large, very well- respected teaching hospital here in Kathmandu. And -- which is probably the largest hospital. There's also a morgue there.

And that is where not only are there pictures of the missing, but also officials have put out images of the dead that they have received from further up country. And again, saw this in Sri Lanka as well. Water wipes away one's identity. It is very hard once a body has been in water, once a human has been killed by the water and been in the water to identify that person, and so people are looking at these images very closely.

They're taking photographs of them. They're sending it around to other family members. Do you think this is my loved one? They're looking for any, you know, tattoos, any scars, anything. In some cases, it's not even a full body, it's body parts, but that may have some sort of image or scar on it that somebody might recognize. It's a hard thing to talk about. It is an even harder thing, obviously, for these families to see and have to do.

But it is the grim reality of when you're trying to find your loved one in a situation like this. This is really sometimes the best chance you can have.

WHITFIELD: Yes. It's very tough. All right. Anderson Cooper, thank you so much. We'll check back with you and Hanako Montgomery momentarily.

All right. Also coming up, the jury is deciding Lindsay Clancy's fate in the deaths of her three children after weeks of emotional testimony. Jurors are weighing questions about her mental state and whether she is criminally responsible. Plus, a massive oil deal in Venezuela. The announcement from the White House that's resulting in the U.S. controlling a large portion of that country's oil reserves.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:06]

WHITFIELD: All right. New today, President Trump announcing the United States has struck a deal with Venezuela that he says will lower gas prices. It involves the U.S. taking control of a huge part of Venezuela's oil reserves.

CNN's Julia Benbrook is at the White House for us.

And, Julia, this comes as gas prices remain stubbornly high.

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does. And that is something that President Donald Trump mentioned in this announcement. He says that the United States has secured a large stake in the Venezuelan oil industry, and that this move doubles American oil reserves.

Now, he also says it will lower gas prices. That, of course, has been a key area of focus with the midterms quickly approaching. But it is important to note that Americans will likely not feel the impact of this change immediately.

He did make this announcement on social media. I want to put part of that up for you now. In it, the president said, quote, "At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with highly respected interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American taxpayer."

Now, there are still a lot of questions about what is exactly included in this deal. We have reached out to the White House for more specifics, but here's what we know at this point. According to a U.S. official, the deal negotiated gives the United States majority control of 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela. The United States takes 55 percent in joint venture with private Venezuelan company. And Trump says that the 100-year oil field lease more than doubles U.S. controlled oil reserves.

Shortly after this deal was announced, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he considers this a win for the American people and the Venezuelan people. He said for the Venezuelan people that this provides nearly $100 billion in private investments and that it will create thousands of high paying jobs.

Now, a little bit of background here, at the beginning of the year, during a large scale military operation, the United States captured Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. He is now in New York facing criminal charges. And shortly after that took place, Trump said that American companies would work to help rebuild Venezuela's oil industry. In January, Venezuelan lawmakers voted to approve a law change that was backed by Rodriguez that makes it easier for foreign countries to take part in Venezuela's oil industry.

Again, we have reached out to the White House for more specifics on all of this -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Julia Benbrook, bring it to us when you get it. Thank you so much.

All right. He was a big supporter of President Trump's immigration crackdown, a controversial right-wing firebrand and early backer of Trump's campaign for president.

[15:20:08]

But now, Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported himself. The Department of Homeland Security says Yiannopoulos, a British citizen, was detained in New Orleans by ICE on Thursday and deported to the United Kingdom yesterday. Over the years, his views drew outrage for using racist and hateful language. DHS says he entered the U.S. legally seven years ago, but overstayed his visa and failed to appear at an immigration hearing.

All right. Coming up, we go back to Nepal, where search and rescue efforts continue around the clock to try to find those missing. A new report on some of the Americans who are among the thousands that are still unaccounted for.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:17]

WHITFIELD: All right. We're back now with our breaking news. A catastrophic flood along the Chinese-Nepali border that has killed more than 600 people so far. And as we mentioned, dozens of Americans are believed to be missing in the China-Nepal floods. Their loved ones desperately hoping that they will be found alive.

CNN's Rafael Romo is with me now with more on among those who are missing.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's hard to imagine what these families must be going through right now. The uncertainty, the wait, and then the communication problems because of what happened in the area, Fred. And according to the U.S. State Department, there are about 90 Americans missing after the devastating flood that hit Nepal's border with China on Wednesday. One of those missing Americans is Anil Goel from Virginia. According to his family Goel, an avid hiker, had planned a multi-day trip to hike Mount Kailash, near Nepal's border with China, as part of a tour group. But his son, Anurag Goel, told CNN this morning that the family hasn't heard from his father or the group since the day before the disaster. Anurag Goel says the last communication from the group happened less than an hour before the flooding happened in that area around the border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANURAG GOEL, SON OF MISSING IN NEPAL: They were known to be at the Nepal side of the Nepal and Tibet border. That's called Gyirong Crossing, and that was -- they were last known to have received their departure stamp on their passports around 8:35 a.m. to depart Nepal, entered Tibet. And there were also some messages through WhatsApp exchanged around that time. So that was roughly 45 minutes before the flooding took place in that area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Goel also told CNN that, quote, "There's been a large lag in communication from the affected region." That has made it even more difficult for families like his, who are desperate for any news about their loved ones. Last night in Hicksville, New York, people came together for a solemn vigil.

This is from the Long Island Nepalese Society organized the vigil to gather in solidarity, prayer and hope. As CNN affiliate News 12 Long Island reported, a man who worked as a teacher in Nepal and now lives in the United States told News 12 he lost several people he knew, including former students and neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIAWAKAR PANDE, NEPALI COMMUNITY LEADER: I was the teacher in there. I lost my three students in there. One, my neighbor, people I lost in there. A lot of the people I lost in this time, in this incident.

MYAM JIRI, LONG ISLAND NEPALESE SOCIETY: It's very heartbreaking to all of us to see our fellow country people losing their lives and houses in a matter of a few minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: A State Department spokesperson told CNN the U.S. government is sending half $1 million in aid to Nepal, including food and those first trucks carrying assistance are on the way. The United Kingdom has pledged nearly $6.8 million in assistance, and the European Union said it would provide $2.3 million in aid. But again, right now, those families, if you can imagine, just trying to find any news, any news whatsoever from their loved ones.

WHITFIELD: And of course, without communication, that's a problem, too. And just seeing those pictures just reinforces --

ROMO: Yes.

WHITFIELD: I mean, the likelihood and the probabilities. All right.

ROMO: Hard to imagine.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Rafael Romo, thank you so much.

ROMO: Of course.

WHITFIELD: All right. That deadly flash flood came without warning. Scientists are now monitoring a second newly formed lake in the Nepali mountains that officials worry could burst its banks.

CNN's Tom Foreman helps us understand what triggered this disaster and how rescuers are still facing the threat of another potential flood.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For all the people involved in this dismal and dangerous work of rescue and recovery, this is something they really don't need.

Let's put ourselves on the map first. India down here, Nepal right through here, China up in this area. And this is where it all happened, sort of the middle of the country there.

What happened? Well, researchers say, in the initial incident, this glacier over here collapsed and it created a landslide. It forced all this debris and mud and water and ice to rush down here, to hit this river valley and send a liquid shockwave through it.

Now when I say a liquid shockwave, how much of a shock? Traveling more than 100 miles an hour. And look at this. If you see the before picture, which we're looking at now, this is the after. Look how far down. This is just absolutely blasted out.

[15:30:03]

And this is where the new concern comes in because if you look closely, you can see right here and right here, those are lakes that have formed along the path from the water building up there against the debris. So they've been watching this very carefully, saying, what if, in fact, all of this that is building up right now, and this is one of the actual sites. What if the water building up behind this, what if this debris and all this scree and rock and mud, what if it gives way? What happens then?

Does one of these lakes or both of them, do they cut loose and come shooting right back down that valley, right on top of the very people who are trying to rescue and recover those who were lost in all of this? That's the worry. What can they do about it? Maybe not a lot but they're trying to get some cameras in place. They want to get more sensors in place to track this. And most of all, they're warning those workers. Look, as hard as the work is, as tired as you are, you have to be ready at a moment's notice to run for higher ground if another flash flood starts coming through.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Gosh. All right, Tom Foreman, thank you so much. Coming up, after weeks of testimony about the deaths of her three

children, Lindsay Clancy's fate is now in the hands of a jury. I'll talk to a former prosecutor who has been following this case closely.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:36:05]

WHITFIELD: Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial are preparing to resume deliberations on Monday. On Friday, the jury sent a note asking to see prescription pill bottles and a knife. Clancy was prescribed about a dozen different medications in 2022 and 2023 to treat her mental illnesses and disorders. The former nurse, who tried to take her own life after she killed her three children pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder.

Let's bring in criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark Eiglarsh for more legal perspective.

Mark, good to see you. I mean, let's start with the closing arguments. Do you think that both sides presented compelling cases?

MARK EIGLARSH, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Competent but not compelling. I think they all fell short candidly, if I'm being honest with you. The defense certainly hit the beats but was completely disorganized. And he took on the health care industry, which was one of his themes. But the main issue, the only issue, is whether at the time that she committed these abhorrent acts, whether she knew right from wrong and-or could conform her behavior to the law.

He didn't really push on that to explain how jurors have an obligation to find her not guilty by reason of insanity because the prosecution didn't make their case on what was in her head.

WHITFIELD: But then, is it your belief that jurors likely have made up their minds before the closing statements? It's really how the case is presented, evidence or lack thereof, so that perhaps the closing statements aren't really that persuasive anyway?

EIGLARSH: I think that studies show that most jurors make up their minds right after opening statement, but are still open. Some of them are still very open. They listened to the testimony, as did I. But closing arguments are meant to guide and help the jurors now focus on what the true issues are. And if I was defending her, I would have gotten up there and saying -- said legally, legally, you must find her not guilty by reason of insanity because both sides, and again, I wouldn't concede this, but you'd say that both sides did present experts that said one thing and the other one opposed the other experts.

And so if you find that both sides presented equally compelling arguments, then you go to the burden of proof, and that lies exclusively in the hands of the commonwealth, the prosecutors.

WHITFIELD: OK. In fact, I mean, Massachusetts is one of a handful of states, you know, with the burden of proving criminal responsibility, meaning the prosecution has to disprove insanity rather than the defense proving cognitive incapacity. So if I'm a juror, what does that mean for me during deliberations? What am I reevaluating?

EIGLARSH: They're going through the testimony that the prosecutor highlighted. And more importantly, their experts went through. They're thinking of all the things that Lindsay Clancy did that showed that she knew right from wrong, that she Googled and determined how long it would take for her husband to go and run these two errands to CVS and pick up food, that she was able to conform her voice to be able to fool him while he was at the CVS and they had a conversation to make it seem like she was completely normal, that she made the decision on which child to go first, second, and third.

You know, you go on and on and on with all the behavior, and then someone in that jury room is going, look at all the decisions she made. Yes, she suffered from a mental illness or defect, but it looked like she kind of could conform her behavior. And she knew right from wrong. And we're going to get there in this deliberation.

WHITFIELD: Do you extrapolate anything from the jurors wanting to -- while in deliberations, wanting to see the pill bottles, wanting to see the knife up close?

[15:40:03]

EIGLARSH: Yes. Those were a couple of issues that were raised throughout the trial. Prosecutors almost mocked her suicide attempt at the very beginning to only to be undermined by their own experts who said, no, this was a serious suicide attempt. So I'm sure because of that issue coming up, one of the jurors at least wants to see, well, how sharp this knife is and what's that about?

The other issue that was raised was that she was overly medicated and that they just did not get a handle on what she truly needed. So they probably wanted to see the pill bottle to see what was still in there, what was prescribed, et cetera.

WHITFIELD: We've seen a lot of, you know, outpouring of support for her. People lining up, wanting to be in the courtroom, you know, wearing pink, you know, in solidarity for her. The jury, you know, that will decide her fate is made up of nine women, three men.

Do you think the gender balance will indicate anything, or do you think even the jurors might have been persuaded at all by this support, people wearing pink in support of Clancy?

EIGLARSH: OK, so first they're human. They're not robots. If they see someone out there supporting a certain side, they could be influenced. And I hope not. I hope they make this decision based upon the evidence and the law provided. But a bigger issue is, are the jurors reflective of what we're seeing on social media? I have found that people are kind of split on this. Some people call her an absolute monster murderer, and the other one say she deserves mercy.

So you wonder how all 12, if they're representative of how people perceive this case, are all going to come to a unanimous decision and find one way or another.

WHITFIELD: No one wants to try to guess when you're talking about three hours of deliberation or an entire day or two days, et cetera. However, it's a real possibility that you might have a hung jury here. Then what?

EIGLARSH: Then the prosecution has to decide whether they want to try this case again, whether they want to offer a plea bargain. The defense will decide whether they want to take that plea bargain. I think that, you know, public opinion sways, you know, influences these prosecutors because they are politicians. Maybe now they've seen the experts and they have a clear idea that she really was suffering from a mental illness.

It's not, you know, something to mock anymore like they did kind of throughout, and maybe they come to some agreement. I don't think that trying this case is in anybody's best interest. Not again.

WHITFIELD: All right. Mark Eiglarsh, thank you so much. Again, jury resumes deliberations on Monday.

EIGLARSH: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:46:53]

WHITFIELD: All right, we're back now with more on the flooding along the Chinese-Nepali border that has killed more than 670 people so far. Rescue crews are searching for nearly 3,000 people who are still missing. 90 Americans are among those still unaccounted for. The devastation left behind is massive. But today, a glimmer of hope after we learned a 6-year-old girl was rescued Friday. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(RESCUERS SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Hanako Montgomery is on the ground there.

I mean, you've been there for a few days now. You saw it when it was very fresh and still unbelievable. Even these many days afterwards to have a rescue like that is extraordinary. But this has become a very rare moment, hasn't it?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, Fredricka. You're absolutely right. I mean, just moments ago, we actually spoke to a father of a 5-year-old girl who learned that his daughter had died in the flooding. He had told us that she was on her way to school. She was in a school bus with her other classmates, and the bus was just swept away by that flood water on Wednesday. And he told us that he's in a really remote village. I mean, he himself barely made it out alive. But because he's in such a remote part of Nepal, it's been impossible

to get access to him. He can't get out of his village. He can't get to safer ground. So even though he knows that his daughter has died and that he needs to identify her body, he says that he has no means, also no money to get to his daughter. And this is an extremely tragic case, one of many we've been hearing here on the ground in Nepal.

You can just imagine how thousands and thousands of families of loved ones are affected by this devastation. And Fredricka, we've been here since Thursday afternoon, local time.

[15:50:04]

And once we landed in Kathmandu, you know, we traveled northwest towards the more hard-hit areas. And immediately we could see just how difficult it is to actually get to those regions, because roads are completely blocked by mud and debris. We're also seeing bridges completely collapsed. It's been really, really difficult to get to these regions. You have to fly helicopters to get there.

So you can only imagine how that's hampered rescue efforts, especially now that we are in the third to the fourth day of this disaster -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And I wonder, Hanako, when it comes down to, you know, these ongoing searches, you know, in hopes of maybe finding, you know, someone alive in the case of, say, like the 6-year-old girl, is it really an issue of just listening for potential screams because, you know, with that kind of like liquid cement that, you know, Anderson was describing earlier, everything looks the same, you know, with this coating of mud.

So the idea of actually seeing someone is really an issue of almost hearing and, you know, for them, listening for them.

MONTGOMERY: Yes, exactly. I mean, there is so much mud everywhere, right? And the mud isn't just a thin layer. I mean, it is several feet deep, especially higher up in the mountains that saw the worst devastation. So we've heard from rescue teams about how they've had to comb through different villages, just go from area to area in these helicopters, trying to find any survivors. I mean, we've seen videos of getting -- people getting rescued from tunnels, workers who were stuck in those tunnels, getting dragged out, also getting slid out.

And also, Fredricka, you know, something that we've been seeing here as the weather has been changing because it's monsoon season right now, is that when it starts to rain, all that hard and mud gets very soft, which means it's easier to sink in. It also means that it's harder to get into and to pull people out, because, again, that just means it's more complicated. It also becomes a risk to those rescue teams as well, who are trying to get to those survivors.

So, Fredricka, I mean, the weather is really not on the side of these rescue teams. You know, that could potentially change in the coming days, as we might see some sunshine. But of course, time is ticking right now. They need to get to those survivors as quickly as possible to get them the emergency aid that they need -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Yes, really awful conditions. It's unbelievable.

All right. Hanako Montgomery, we'll keep checking back with you. Thank you so much.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:57:55]

WHITFIELD: Every summer, a temporary city rises in the shadow of Montana's Big Horn Mountains with some 1500 teepees drawing Native Americans and visitors from all around the world. It's Crow Fair known as the "Teepee Capital of the World," and there's a special invitation to experience it for yourself on your next big trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good that you came. This is the time where the Crow Fair celebration is happening.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For over 100 years, a temporary city pops up every summer in the shadow of the Big Horn Mountains. This is Crow Fair, known as the "Teepee Capital of the World," with 1500 canvases raised on the Crow reservation outside of Billings, Montana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bingo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been using teepees as far back as probably like 1600s, 1700s. You feel alive, you know, you feel like you're like a real Indian.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Today, this is one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in North America. Indigenous communities and tourists come from around the world to experience it. The day starts with a parade in Crow Regalia.

VANESSA AFRAID OF BEAR, MISS CROW NATION: One of the biggest topics in Indian country today is the loss of culture. With Crow Fair being as big as it is, it kind of aids us in the way that we're able to keep our teachings and our traditions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now here they come.

RIPLEY (voice-over): One of those traditions is the adrenaline filled Indian relay. It's a race where riders jump off a bareback horse onto another.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now this is an outstanding team.

AFRAID OF BEAR: One common misconception is people believe that they need to be invited. But really, the invitation is open ended. I just think that the best way to support us is just being here. This is my invitation. This is me inviting you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Oh, that's beautiful. Time to go.

And before we go, this hour a farm in New Jersey is paying tribute to the late Dolly Parton. Even before her passing the Happy Day Farm had been working on a corn maze to honor the country icon. The maze originally was meant to raise awareness of Dolly Parton's imagination book program for kids. She even gave her OK for the attraction and encouraged people to visit the farm. And now they can see it that way as well.

All right, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "THE ARENA SATURDAY" starts right now.