Crisis in Ukraine; Searching for Flight 370
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Outrage in Odessa. Protesters storm a police building, setting prisoners free as Ukraine's violence spreads from the east to a major poor city now. The government says Russia is to blame as civil war grows closer. We are live with the very latest.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Expanded. The search for Flight 370 now covers a wider part of the ocean floor. But first, a whole lot of preparation. Australia, Malaysia and China planning what comes next, promising this jet will be found, even if it takes years. We are live with the latest on the hunt, missing now for nearly two months.</s>ROMANS: On trial again. Oscar Pistorius returns to court in South Africa after a two-week delay in his murder case. His defense determined to show he shot his girlfriend accidentally, but prosecutors, they have other plans. Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.</s>BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. It is Monday, May 5th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East. And up first, Odessa under siege. The bloodshed and violence in Ukraine's third largest city escalating dramatically. Now hundreds of pro-Russian militants storming a police station Sunday, freeing dozens of their own. Nearly 50 people are now dead after three days of violence there. The bloodshed in Odessa really upping the stakes in the deepening struggle now in several parts of Ukraine. So, let's get the latest now from Arwa Damon live in Donetsk. That is in eastern Ukraine. Arwa, what can you tell us this morning?</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that violence in Odessa most certainly has served to harden people's emotions here in eastern Ukraine, where up until those clashes broke out in Odessa, that fire breaking out in that building that killed a vast majority of those people, Odessa had been relatively calm. A lot of the violence, a lot of the standoffs that we've been seeing between the pro-Russian camp and the pro-Ukrainian camp had been centering here in eastern Ukraine, and we're still seeing that continuing, despite the fact that the Ukrainian government has launched a so-called antiterrorism campaign. The military has been moving in on some of the key cities of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. They have yet to make any sort of significant gains. When it comes to the pro-Russian side, they continue to dig into the various locations that they hold, taking over even more buildings than they have in the past and even clashing with riot police with ministry of interior forces. But at the end of the day, the pro-Russian side always ends up winning. The Ukrainian forces forced to negotiate in a number of these instances, forced to retreat, and effectively, meet the demands of the pro-Russian camp. Of great concern, of course, in all of this is the fact that Russia itself has tens of thousands of troops perched right on the border, everyone watching what they're going to be doing incredibly closely, everyone, especially NATO allies in this region, very concerned that this country could be moving towards a full-scale war.</s>BERMAN: Yes, no doubt, Arwa, a crucial day there after the violence we've seen of the last few days. Arwa Damon in Donetsk -- thanks for being with us this morning.</s>ROMANS: All right. This morning, we're getting a closer look at a terrifying accident during a circus in Rhode Island and a warning to you this morning, this is graphic what we're about to show you. This cell phone video shows what happened at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey performance. That's an apparatus holding these acrobats by their hair. It obviously failed, all of them crashing to the ground. Eleven people, including all 9 of those acrobats, were hurt.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, I thought it was the act. We see them, they were doing acrobats with their hair.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was worried for the people, for their welfare.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We asked everybody to, you know, pray for the girls and everybody on the act.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This shouldn't happen, and we'll get to the bottom of why it happened and make sure it doesn't happen going forward.</s>ROMANS: Now, the circus says it takes the health of its performers seriously and carefully inspects all of its equipment and it is working with the city of Providence to try to figure out exactly what happened.</s>BERMAN: We have breaking news overnight to tell you about. Six people hurt on a us airways jet flying from Philadelphia to Orlando. The airline says the plane was climbing after takeoff, when it hit severe turbulence and had to return to the Philadelphia airport. I want you to listen to a passenger describe this ordeal.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it was a crazy experience. We were just up in the air, lifted out of our seats, seeing things flying all over the place. I got sick from it. There was people injured,</s>BERMAN: Nice to see her smiling at least. Four passengers, two flight attendants were injured. The flight attendants were later released. It is not clear at this point the nature of the other injuries. But one passenger said a woman hit her head on the ceiling, which is kind of common in this type of turbulence. The other passengers continued on to Orlando.</s>ROMANS: All right. If search teams ever hope to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, they're going to need more sophisticated equipment to get a better look at the ocean floor. Officials from Malaysia, Australia and China announcing an expansion and a new direction for the mission, while they insist they still believe they are looking for the plane in the right place. Let's go to Kuala Lumpur and bring in Will Ripley. Good morning, Will. Expand -- they have to expand this search, and they really have to refocus here.</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Christine. And before they can expand the search, what they're going to do -- and this is first time that we're hearing this -- is that they're going to take a second look at all of the data that has brought them to this particular spot in the southern Indian Ocean, and we're not just talking about the satellite data and those underwater pings that were detected, but everything that was recorded in the last eight-plus weeks. The Bluefin-21's underwater scans, any visual evidence which was jotted down by the planes and the ships, because if you think about it, Christine, it is really remarkable, if you think about the effort -- 4.6 million square kilometers searched, more than 300 planes, more than 3,000 hours in the air, some 29 aircraft, 14 ships, and yet, not one single piece of the plane, a point touched upon by Australia's deputy prime minister.</s>WARREN TRUSS, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, AUSTRALIA: It is disappointing that we've had no debris that has led us to this wreckage. It's also interesting to note that the search in the area we have concentrated on began quite a number of days after the aircraft had disappeared. The likelihood that if there was debris floating, it had drifted to the bottom of the ocean before we even began our search.</s>RIPLEY: So, in other words, perhaps by the time they began looking in the right place, there was nothing to be seen, at least on the surface. So, that's what makes this underwater search so critical. On Wednesday, not only will they be meeting to take another look at the data, but they'll also be talking about the different kinds of technology they're going to bring in there. It's remarkable to think there's more technology to go into space than to go down to the bottom of the ocean. The search chief, Angus Houston, said you can count on one hand the number of devices in the world that are available that can do this kind of work.</s>ROMANS: Wow, ships in Bangladesh, they're looking for the ship in the Bay of Bengal. Any updates on that for us this morning, Will?</s>RIPLEY: We learned over the weekend, there are three ships total from the Bangladeshi navy, including a survey ship, one of them had side- scan sonar. They've been looking, haven't found anything yet, Christine.</s>ROMANS: Will, thank you so much. Nice to see you this morning.</s>BERMAN: Meanwhile, divers in South Korea are closer to recovering all the bodies from that capsized ferry 20 days after it sank. The death toll is now up to 260 with 42 people still missing. South Korea's president visited with family members in Jindo on Sunday, meeting with relatives who have yet to learn the fate of their loved ones. Many of those, of course, on board were high school students. The investigation is now focused on whether human error by the crew was to blame for this tragedy.</s>ROMANS: The president of Nigeria is vowing to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls abducted last month by the Islamic militant group Boko Haram, which opposes Western education, especially for girls. Protests have erupted in cities across the globe, criticizing Nigeria's response to the crisis. The campaign "Bring Back Our Girls" now going viral. President Goodluck Jonathan admitted Sunday he doesn't know where the girls are but criticized their parents for not cooperating fully with police.</s>BERMAN: A rescue effort to dig out more than 2,000 people buried in a landslide in Afghanistan has come to an end. Local officials in the rural northeastern province have now declared the site a mass grave. President Obama called Afghan leader Hamid Karzai Sunday to express his condolences and offer continued support. The landslide is believed to have buried some 300 homes, claiming up to a third, a third of that village.</s>ROMANS: All right, it is back to court today for the former Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius. A long break now over as the defense argues why Pistorius is not guilty of murder. We're live in Pretoria, next.