PADANG, Indonesia - The last 48 hours have been bewildering. A series of natural disasters across the Asia Pacific has left us scrambling to cover diverse disasters.

CNN's cameraman Mark Phillips, producer Andy Saputra and survivor John Lee chat in a hospital.

First Tropical Storm Ketsana left Manila 80 percent underwater. So we did our best to get there as soon as possible. But almost no sooner had we arrived than an earthquake and tsunami hit the remote Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa.

Frantic calls to various travel agents followed. “How do we get there? Via Seoul?? 35 hours???! You’ve got to be kidding.”

As we were making plans, Ketsana smashed into Vietnam. As other CNN crews were dispatched from Indonesia to Vietnam, suddenly news of another huge earthquake in Sumatra.

It meant we had a logistical nightmare to get to all of our equipment across the other side of the region in double quick time.

A flight through Singapore, Jakarta (endless delayed flights) and finally Padang got us to the heart of the latest crisis.

As our plane glided in over the city I could see the ribbons of light along the roads, but in between, there was dark emptiness. The entire city was blacked-out. Only a few buildings had backup generators. It made live television broadcasts very, very tricky. We had our own portable generator but could bring gasoline on a plane, and now the queue for fuel was two to three hours at the local gas station.

We managed to get a few live shots in the bag before finally our batteries died. Then like the residents of Padang, we too were feeling our way through the night. We found a half-built hotel, which had been slightly damaged. The owner was reluctant to let us stay inside because of the risk of aftershocks, ¬so we instead caught a couple of hours sleep in his bus in the parking lot.

Daylight enabled us to get a much better view of the damage. It’s bizarrely random, as it always seems to be in earthquakes. Some buildings are standing intact, others folded in on themselves.

There is one incident that will stick in my mind forever. It was the incredible story of John Lee. The 55-year-old Singaporean coal trader had been in Padang on business when suddenly his meeting was plunged into darkness, as the quake ”exploded” around him, and before he could react, the building collapsed.

CNN cameraman Mark Phillips spotted some Indonesian rescuers trying to free him, but it seemed like a hopeless effort. They were using a hammer and chisel to try and tunnel through tons of concrete, but Mark spent hours talking to John through the rubble and trying to reassure him that he’d be alright. Watch Phillips talk with Lee, as he's trapped beneath rubble.

Mark left the scene to find out if there was more that could be done but then heard later that John had been freed from his prison of mangled wreckage. On a whim, at one in the morning, we decided to go up to the hospital to see if John was OK. And as we walked into the lobby, there he was, on a stretcher, conscious, awake and smiling.

Finally Mark got to see the man he’d presumed would surely die, and John put a face to the voice who’d given him hope when his situation seemed utterly hopeless.

Amid all this destruction, tragedy and chaos a story of survival and courage that made the last 48 hours seem thoroughly worthwhile.

OLD BEICHUAN, China — The mourners were already gathering at 4 a.m. The government had declared old Beichuan open to the public for four days, yet a growing crowd of people were told to wait outside a steel gate manned by Peoples' Armed Police. "It's for your own safety," an officer told me. "We can't have you climbing around on the rubble in the dark".

Mourners at Beichuan Middle School hold a ceremony for children killed in the 2008 earthquake.

By 7a.m., it was light. We did our first live shot in front of several hundred people, half an hour later the gates opened and the crowds pushed past police. The officer in charge wasn't happy and told us to move on, so we followed the crowd downhill towards old Beichuan.

Look at Wen-Chun Fan’s photos of Old Beichuan

I still vividly recall climbing around on the ruins of Beichuan, which was flattened in the Sichuan quake, a year ago. A pile of rubble seven stories high formed as the ground heaved and buildings across the street from one another slammed together. Smoke was still rising from smoldering fires burning under our feet and people were crying, digging and desperately shouting the names of their loved ones. And, there was that unmistakable, faintly sweet scent of death.

Now as I walked past the same rubble, the smell was of burning incense and the crackle of firecrackers echoing through the valley. Those who desperately searched for their loved ones back then now set up makeshift shrines along a police line. They burned paper money, paper clothes, even little paper houses.

Some buildings that were barely standing after the quake had been worn down by raging floodwaters released from the Tangjiashan "quake-lake" just upstream. Others stood half buried in mud from a huge landslide last September, but for the most part, old Beichuan was still as I remembered it: The huge, house-sized boulders shaken loose from the mountains above that came crashing down into six-story apartment blocks; a Volkswagen that somehow ended up in a tree; furniture in living rooms with only two walls left standing.

After two hours of walking with 100 kilograms of gear split between the three of us on the CNN team, we finally made it to a spot with a decent satellite signal. We did live shot after live shot from almost the exact same spot we broadcast from last year. The crowds kept on coming, it felt as if thousands, if not tens of thousands, had made the pilgrimage to old Beichuan today, some family members of those lost in the quake, others just tourists who wanted to have a look.

Our original plan of doing live broadcasts late into the evening was not to be. By 4:30 p.m., police were asking people to head back. Old Beichuan, at night, was not a safe place. As we started walking, a bright red spot in the crumbled cement caught my eye. It was a geranium flower growing out from the rubble of a collapsed house.