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.

L'AQUILA, Italy - During the daytime the camps which house those made homeless by the earthquake appear fairly cheerful places. The sun shines, children throw balls and play with toys, clowns roam up and down the rows of tents injecting their little bit of fun, people sit outside the tents reading the papers. But this is the daytime.

Survivors of this week's Italian earthquake are living in tented villages and asking when they can return home.

At night, it is bitterly cold. There are whole families of 12, if not more, crowded into the tents, wearing the same clothes as they were wearing four days ago when the earthquake struck. They are cold and the aftershocks bring panic. When you look at their eyes in the mornings, they are red and bloodshot, all on the verge of tears. All the time.

We were in the camp registration tent earlier when a man came in and began shouting. He wanted to get back into his home, he asked why couldn't he just collect his things? The aid worker replied: "Thirty-thousand people want to get back into their homes, what can I do?"

I asked a lady I'd profiled in a report on Wednesday whether she'd managed to sleep last night. "How can I sleep when the earth won't stop moving?" she said.

People say they are being well looked after. I've seen handouts of all sorts of Italian delicacies - the finest buffalo mozarella, panettone... Only in Italy, I thought.

The toilets and shower facilities are as clean as they can be in a camp which houses more than 1,000 people. There are medical tents and pharmacies on site, psychologists offer walk-in services, an order of Franciscan monks arrived this morning to provide spiritual support. They're having to sleep in one tent too: their monastery was damaged in the quake.

But the misery here is profound and the grief will go on. Tomorrow many of the victims will be buried in a mass funeral. It's Good Friday tomorrow. A terrible Easter for so many thousands of people in this deeply Catholic country.

HENAN, China — Now I understand why so many of China's farmers leave their homes in the countryside to look for jobs in the city, even though urban living conditions for migrant workers can be poor.

Rain-fed farms in Henan province have been at the whim of Mother Nature.

Farmwork is backbreaking, especially under an unforgiving sky that hasn't rained in months. 

We followed the drought to Henan province, one of the driest areas.  Fields of winter wheat stretch for miles, from the edge of the freeway over faraway hilltops. 

We saw farmers bent over their crops, acre after acre, watering each sprout by hand. Many worry if it doesn't rain significantly soon, their crops will die. 

One farmer told us if he doesn't have a good harvest, he will have no choice but to look for a job in the city. But jobs in the city are getting harder to find as China's economy slows down. He hadn't heard about the economic crisis.

Crops on irrigated farms may survive the drought. But in more remote areas, irrigation systems are poor or nonexistent. China's rain-fed farms, the farms that depend on rain, are the most seriously threatened. They are at the whim of Mother Nature.

Mother Nature has wreaked havoc on China's vast landscape in the last year, from snowstorms, to floods, an earthquake, and now the drought.

But the people who weather these natural disasters are resilient. There is a saying in Chinese: "Eat bitterness."  It refers to the ability of the Chinese to suffer without complaint, and still, survive. 

The farmers in Henan province are yet another example.

WHITTLESEA, Australia — Rural Australians are a tough bunch - how else do you explain people who insist on living in bushland prone to sweeping wild fires every summer?

A sign is taped to a post in front of a burnt out property after the fires on February 10 in Bendigo.

At first, most here around the town of Whittlesea seemed to be shell-shocked, unable to deal with the enormity of the devastation which now surrounds them... small towns like Marysville and Kinglake, once picture perfect towns reduced to smoldering ruins.

Then there was grief for the dead, the injured.

Now there is anger. At the relief center, families lashed out at TV news crews. There was at least one argument involving pushing and shoving, maybe even a punch was thrown. One woman grabbed me, saying: "Don't sell your morals for a pay check".

Major Rodney Barnard from the Salvation Army told me: "People are angry because they feel helpless, they're lashing out at the police who won't let them back to see if their homes are still standing, they're angry because now they realize all they have they're standing in".

At the Whittlesea relief center, volunteers are sifting through piles and piles of donated clothes, food, diapers and other essential supplies to help the survivors cope over the next few days.

One woman, Monique, said she just wanted to do something, she was not directly affected, but she needed to come and help.

And that seems to be the case everywhere here - from the frontlines of the fire to Australia's cities there is an overwhelming drive to regain control in the face of a massive uncontrollable natural disaster.