Travel notes in disaster areas

I want to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake with this old work.

Text/Chen Li

June 29(th), 2008

All joys and sorrows are blessings.

Although it has been more than a month since the earthquake, I still can't help but burst into tears when I saw the report on the disaster area on TV, and I have been worried about it. I always want to go there to have a look, do something for them, listen to their talk, and see how the children in the tent school are doing and whether they are out of the shadow of disaster. Finally, at the end of the summer vacation, I called Sanping to go to Wenchuan together. She said that she had arrived in Chengdu, so I bought a plane ticket in a hurry and rushed over.

My brother's car broke down on the way to the airport. The 9: 50 plane of Sichuan Airlines arrived in Tianhe at 9: 35 and was told that it could not board. I thought I could re-sign the afternoon flight, but the plane of the same airline didn't arrive until tomorrow, and my anxiety exploded into a blame for my brother. I have an appointment with Sanping to meet in Deyang. Anyway, I have to get to Chengdu today and then take a bus to Deyang, otherwise I will miss my trip to Deyang. Everything has become a fact. After I calmed down, I just felt like crying. My brother called his comrades in China Southern Airlines to help me reduce my losses. That's China Southern Airlines flight at 7: 40 p.m.. Alas! I'm worried that money is a thing apart, so I'd better buy a ticket for Xiamen Airlines at 5: 20.

There are still seven hours to kill. I sent several messages to my friends in Chengdu, telling the arrival time. Because of me, Third Sister had to return to Chengdu from Deyang. There are not many people in the empty new dormitory. Sitting in the waiting room, I really realized what boredom is. My heart began to ache again when I thought of those terrible and desperate children buried under the rubble.

Just after four o'clock, there was bad news. The plane of Xiamen Airlines at 5: 20 had mechanical trouble. At five o'clock, we were asked to take the 7: 40 flight of China Southern Airlines. When I heard the news, my head was big. I gave up the flight that I could get at a 50% discount. Now I want you to take it away by force without any explanation. I have nothing to say about my resentment.

Looking at the long queues of people waiting to sign tickets and planes waiting to fly into the blue sky in the parking lot, my heart gradually calmed down, because I still have a chance to wait, and I still feel angry. I can see the blue sky and I can hear people's complaints. Because I'm still alive, I'm going to visit those sleepless souls over Beichuan.

After waiting for nearly twelve hours, I finally arrived in Chengdu at 9: 15 pm.

June 30(th)

Rainbow appeared after the storm.

Starting from Chengdu, I left in a hurry and didn't buy any motion sickness medicine. I arrived in Mianyang in a daze and walked out of the station. The traffic on the wide road is like a tide, the flowers in the elegant wooden flower bed in the middle of the road are in full bloom, and the pedestrians on the sidewalk are bustling, without feeling the depression after the disaster. I want to stay in a hotel near the station for the convenience of riding. As I walked, I saw that many houses had been damaged in appearance, and some were going to be reinforced with scaffolding. Only the appearance of Prince Hotel is still magnificent. When I went in to ask, Sanping and I quickly quit. Although I'm staying at the "Prince Hotel", the safety factor is definitely higher than other hotels, but considering the itinerary here, after all, it's at my own expense, so it's better to save some money.

The scaffolding outside the "New World Hotel" and the green notice posted on the glass door by the "Post-earthquake Housing Emergency Inspection Team" gave us the courage to walk in. There is only a room on the sixth floor, which shows that there are many people living in it. I smiled with Sanping. Now that I'm in the disaster area, I can't care so much. Let's live! When people reach middle age, they are not afraid to miss life, but to miss the course of life.

After lunch, it was past three o'clock in the afternoon and it began to rain outside. I just arrived in Mianyang, a stranger, and I don't know where to go. I rented a taxi by the roadside. The driver is a woman. We asked her if there was a "rescue station" in Mianyang. She said there was one in the county below. It was late to go to the county seat, and she enthusiastically took us to Xishan Park. I don't know whether it is the reason of the extraordinary period or the influence of the rain. Although the tickets were free because of the earthquake, there was no one else in the park, only us strolling in the rain. The park has a large area and is built on the mountain, with many scenic spots. The designer's ingenuity can be seen from the elegant layout of "Jiangyuan". We didn't pay attention to it, and when we saw the nearest "Jiangyuan" to the door, we retired.

There is a bus parked at the gate of the park. Now it is our private car. The driver took us to the side of the road, and we took a taxi to Jiuzhou Gymnasium, which used to be a temporary shelter for Beichuan victims. The taxi driver told us his feelings in the 5 12 earthquake. At that time, his car was moving, and the body bumped up and down seriously. At first he thought which wheel had run away, but later he felt that the steering wheel was out of order and the car was swinging from side to side when running. The driver who was waiting for passengers in the car said that he thought his car was rear-ended, and he didn't know it was the earth until he saw the nearby buildings dancing like a swing dance, with a swing range of almost one meter. They say that if the earthquake lasts for a few seconds, Mianyang city will be completely finished.

Jiuzhou Gymnasium is empty, and the victims in it have just been placed in other temporary tents two days ago. We asked passers-by, and they all said they didn't know the specific location of the resettlement, only that most of them were resettled in Anxian County. It's already past seven in the afternoon, and it's raining harder and harder, so we have to leave in a hurry.

Back in the city, the rain just stopped. Two curved rainbows appear quietly in the clear sky in the east, flickering, just like the goddess coming out of the bath and her beautiful flower girl, with colorful petals scattered. Pedestrians have stopped to watch the rare "double rainbow" spectacle. According to the Bible, the appearance of the rainbow is an agreement between God and Noah, so that the flesh and blood on the earth will no longer suffer disasters. At this moment, I pray silently in my heart that God will keep his promise and not let the disaster come to the earth again. May the people in the disaster areas be happy after the disaster, and may Mianyang, which is peaceful and peaceful after the disaster, be richer and better!

On the morning of July 2.

Disaster is the touchstone of man.

Mianyang is a prosperous and beautiful prefecture-level city with a population of more than one million. Anxian, Beichuan, Jiangyou and Pingwu all suffered heavy losses in this earthquake, especially Beichuan. It is said that most of the victims in Beichuan have been placed in Anxian County. In the evening, we discussed taking Mianyang as our foothold and starting from Anxian County, the nearest to Mianyang.

Soon after the car left Mianyang, I saw some collapsed houses and tents scattered on both sides of the road. The closer to Anxian County, the more houses collapse. The people in the car said that the disaster situation in Xiaoba Township is very serious, and we have no fixed goal in this trip. We heard that where the disaster was serious and where there was a rescue station, we went there, so we decided to make up the ticket money and go to Xiaoba Township, Anxian County, Mianyang, which is close to Beichuan County, the earthquake center. As soon as I passed Anxian, I saw collapsed houses and falling rocks everywhere. From a distance, once green hills were everywhere, but now they are devastated. Our camera performance is too poor to capture the thrilling pain after the landslide. Only by visiting the scenery in person can you feel the pain when the mountain is torn.

Xiao Wang, a friend I met in the car, took us to Xiaoba. Most of the houses in the street have collapsed, and the standing buildings are badly damaged and uninhabitable. There are two bulldozers donated by Liaoning Province on the street to level the foundation. Dark-skinned armed police soldiers are helping the victims clean up the ruins. All the victims live in a low-lying flat land, which is the only flat land in the town. Yesterday's heavy rain flooded their tent, and today's scorching sun made the tent look like a steamer. I went in and stood for a while, feeling "kang" all over, just like roasting on a fire, and the temperature was at least nearly 40 degrees. At noon, women cook in the shade outside the tent. They cut off large pieces of meat and cooked food for us to eat together. We said we would bring instant noodles, and the first one would prepare the meal and send it to us.

They say that the government subsidizes 10 yuan per person every day, and the government's policy is very good, but they are very dissatisfied with township cadres, saying that they don't care about their sufferings and don't organize them to help themselves in production. The foundation leveling in the street is organized by the villagers spontaneously, and nothing can find the figure of village cadres. They don't know what it would be like without the help of army soldiers. They said with a smile that all kinds of relief materials accumulated by village cadres at home can open a supermarket.

The villagers told us that the earthquake not only lost property, but also lost many talents. There is a 63839 unit in Xiaoba Town, which is the nuclear base of the State Science and Technology Commission. They said a senior official was crushed in the collapsed building. An old man told me that there were several people in the street who were very shameful. On the day of the earthquake, they ran to the base compound to grab things and moved the TV and refrigerator to their home. The next day, the troops moved home. The building of the base is next to a small bridge that enters Xiaoba Street. The base we saw was in ruins, and there was no room for people to go. The villagers said that they don't know if the country will put the base in their place. I climbed high to take pictures, and suddenly I felt someone stomping underground. They told me that there had just been an aftershock.

On the afternoon of July 2nd.

A moment of shock

Farewell to Xiaoba Township, we retraced our steps and got off at a big tent beside the highway. This is the "Loess Rescue Station" reported by CCTV. The little boy took us to the tent where their teacher lived. Before he came near, he heard a man's hearty laughter. After introduction, he knew that this was Liu Wenhai, the headmaster of Happy Tent School. These teachers from Yuxue Primary School in Yuli Township, Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County are still open-minded and cheerful after considering life and death.

Yudong, named after Dayu's mother and son live in a small cave, has a "mother bed" inside and a "children's pool" outside. The water in the pool turned red because Dayu took a bath after he was born. Dayu's hometown has beautiful mountains and rivers and many legends. In this earthquake, Yuxue Primary School created another miracle. The landslide behind the teaching building, sediment poured in from the window and filled the classroom on the first floor. The teaching building cracked, but didn't collapse. More than 20 teachers and students in the whole school/KLOC-0 escaped in just ten seconds, and no one was killed or injured.

This is a building built in 1990. 1, Grade 2, 3 and 4 students are on the first floor, and Grade 5 and 6 students are on the second floor. In the afternoon, students take a lunch break in the classroom, get up at 2: 10, prepare the bell at 2: 25, and have class at 2: 30. The school clock was three minutes slow, that is to say, at 2: 28 pm on 12, the school clock was 2: 25, and the preparatory bell rang. Some teachers have arrived at the door of the classroom, while others have already entered the classroom. Before most students could enter the classroom, the earth shook violently, and the teachers quickly fled the shaking classroom. The ground of the playground undulates like water waves, and the frightened students are scrambling. It was the slow-paced bell ringer who saved the students in three minutes that decided life and death. ?

Director Zhang Qinian told me that two hours after the earthquake, he didn't realize that he was still holding the blackboard tightly, and some teachers didn't realize that they were still holding chalk in their hands, which shows the tension at that time.

At the moment when the earth shook, President Liu was also thinking about life and death. On the morning of May 12, President Liu held a meeting in Beichuan County Education Bureau and returned to school by bus after lunch. There are ten drivers on the bus, five men and five women. Because the bus was bumpy, the people on it didn't feel anything at first. They just saw the stone rolling down the hillside in front of them. They thought it was a landslide caused by a gun explosion for road construction and power station. Together, they told the driver to back off and suddenly braked for a while. They felt the car body shaking violently and the windows were broken. President Liu stepped out of the front window and looked at the parking position. The road is like a broken biscuit, and the bus body rides on a big crack. At the moment of landslide, if the driver is inexperienced and the bus's braking system is not excellent, it will miss a few seconds. The bus will either be buried by the stones falling from the front and back of the car body, or fall into the cracks in the road and roll into the rapidly formed dammed lake at the foot of the mountain. President Liu saw a big truck floating in the whirlpool of the dammed lake.

The way forward and the way backward are blocked, and below is a rapidly rising lake with a whirlpool. Too late to think about it, the desire to survive drove ten of them to venture up the mountain through thorns. Along the way, we should remove the dense thorns; Also, avoid the mud stones that roll down from time to time, and be thirsty to eat the moss stems of wild lilies; When they were hungry, they used the alpine rush in China to satisfy their hunger. They kept climbing for more than six hours before reaching the top of the mountain. They were soaked to the skin. Up to now, they don't know whether they are wet by sweat or urine. From the scar on President Liu's arm, you can imagine the original bloodiness.

Reaching the top of the mountain, it's past eight and it's still dark. President Liu saw a big crack at the top of the mountain, extending to the foot of the mountain. To the south of the mountain is Beichuan County. Looking from the mountain to the county seat, it was gray and nothing could be seen, so they went down the mountain along Beiling. Together with the victims of the clean village in Xuanping Township, we help to take care of the students there. We set off at 5: 30 am on 13, and returned to Yuxue Primary School at 3 pm on 14 to meet the students and teachers who were not picked up by their parents. Now they are in the Happy Tent School with the children from the Loess Rescue Station. The documentary "After the Storm" filmed by CCTV Channel 6 reflects the lives of children in "Happy Tent School".

July 3

Beichuan does not need tears.

Gulei Town is the nearest town to Beichuan County, where some Beichuan victims are housed. There are not many people from Mianyang to Gulei Town. When I arrived at a station near Anxian by bus, a dark and thin woman came along. When she heard that we were inquiring about the resettlement site of Beichuan victims, she enthusiastically told us that her name was Pang, a native of Beichuan County, and the resettlement site was in Yong 'an. Now she has something to do, and she will be back in Yong 'an in an hour. Leave her phone number and make an appointment to see her this afternoon.

The parking spots in Gulei Town are sparsely populated, with mountains on both sides. There are two roads here, one is the main road leading to Beichuan County, and the other is the uphill fork road leading to Gulei Town. Several motorcycle drivers told us that there is another way to the "Gulei Town" rescue station, and they can take us up. There is no other choice. Sit down. The mountain road is rugged and bumpy, and the car is dusty. The flying dust blocked people's sight, so they couldn't breathe. They can't keep their eyes open without sunglasses. About ten minutes later, they got off at the gate of Banggu Middle School. There were no casualties among teachers and students in this school, but the buildings on campus were damaged. Several boardrooms have been built on the school playground, and all the children have classes in them.

After several tents, we walked into a tent. They were having lunch and saw our enthusiastic proposal. There were five families and nine people living in a tent of more than ten square meters. We were embarrassed to squeeze in and sat at the door talking to them. They are all farmers in Beichuan County. After their land was expropriated by the government, they went to work in Beichuan County. Two of the nine people lost their husbands, and one lost his wife and children. The other seven people belong to the same family, three old brothers, and only half of the fourteen people are left, four of whom survived because they were in other places. During the earthquake, the grandson of the second family, the grandson of the daughter-in-law of the old family and the daughter-in-law of the third family were all buried in the rented building. The son and daughter-in-law of the second family were also crushed under the rubble. After 40 hours, the son saved himself. After the daughter-in-law was buried for 80 hours, she was dug out of the ruins by the army at 15 pm 10. She was transferred to Chongqing hospital for treatment and just came home.

At one o'clock, the second child in his fifties left us. He works nearby to make money. I looked at the other three young people, who were sitting still. They are men who have lost their wives and children. The pain of losing their loved ones made their faces dull. I suddenly realized that of the five families, only the second one is more complete. Although he has no property and no lively grandson, he has a wife.

Only in the hardest hit area of Beichuan earthquake did I know that everyone and every family has a story of blood and tears. From their tears, we can't bear to talk any more. I talked to them about the closed Beichuan county, and heard that we wanted to go in. The son of the second family said that he could take us to Beichuan County from the nearby mountain.

On the road leading to Beichuan, there are many huge stones. It was these big stones that blocked the road, blocked the advance of troops and delayed the rescue time. More than 500 teachers and students in Qushan Kindergarten alone have lost the chance to survive. Along the way, there were a lot of heavy machinery under construction, digging a ditch several meters deep and we didn't know what to do. The motorcycle we were riding passed through the dust all over the sky. The intersection leading to the county seat is guarded by special police officers in black uniforms. Seeing the three of us approaching and asking where to go, the young man pointed to another road and said to go there. This is a road leading to "Qiangzhai", and Beichuan survivors can only go up the mountain from here to pay homage to their relatives who died on the roadside opposite Beichuan.

two

12 Beichuan County at 2: 28 on May 28th was like a horrible disaster movie, which shook the earth! It was dark, and the four-story roof instantly became the ground; Idle in a cave teahouse next to the "water bridge", it was buried alive in an instant; Some people who thought they had fled to a safe place were suddenly swallowed up by cracks in the earth or buried by falling rocks. Everything happened when people were caught off guard. More than 580 teachers and students in Qushan Kindergarten only rescued a dozen children, and "Salute Boy Lang Zheng" was one of the survivors. Together, the teachers and students who escaped and the children who were not sent to school, less than 50 people survived, and none of the more than 20 nurses and "preschool" children came out. There is a class in the third grade of Qushan Primary School, and only six of the 34 students escaped.

Survivors told us that it was a day's market and the mountain road was difficult to walk. When people from Siliba Township arrive at the county seat, it is usually noon. The moment the earthquake happened, it was the time when the market was crowded with people. If that day was market day, the death toll would be even higher and the consequences would be even more unimaginable.

Beichuan County is surrounded by mountains, and the only exit leads to Renjiaping (where Beichuan Middle School is located). Now it is guarded by special police. The mountain in the northwest of the city is called Wangjiaya, which is an earth-rock mountain. Qushan Primary School123rd grade and Qushan Kindergarten are at the foot of Wangjiaya. The mountain in the southeast is called Jingjiashan, which is full of stones. People in the place where the mountain collapsed 300 years ago called it "Rock Foot", and the school site of Maoba Middle School is on the Rock Foot. A clear "Weihe River" divides the county into old streets and new streets. The old street is not wide, close to Wangjiaya, and the new street is wide, close to Jingjiashan. Before the earthquake, Beichuan was a prosperous and beautiful small mountain city, and the urban architecture had a strong Qiang style (many exquisite Qiang style paintings can be seen in the ruins).

What is a landslide! The whole movement of Wangjiaya Mid-level Mountain crushed Qushan Primary School and Qushan Kindergarten at the foot of the mountain. The collapsed loess buried most of two schools and other buildings in the nearby old street. The huge air billow and earthquake waves caused buildings on both sides of the old street to collapse, and only one building of the power company collapsed and leaned there. Everyone who fled from buildings to the street in the old street was buried by collapsed buildings or rocks, and no one was spared. On the other side of the new street, the big stone on Jingjiashan rolled down, and Maoba Middle School was instantly buried under the stone. In several schools, many teachers and students who fled from the classroom to the playground were buried by stones. What do you mean, ground fissure! Several parents sent their children to kindergarten after lunch break. In front of the school gate, they watched helplessly as the earth opened its mouth, swallowed up the children who were playing, and then closed it again. Before being swept away by the huge air billow, several parents clung to the iron gate.

Next to us, a three-star soldier is telling a four-star soldier in the General Logistics Department about the rescue scene at that time. All the excavated bodies were buried in a pit where a company was going to install an elevator. Locals call it "mass graves". At that time, the ruins were covered with outstretched arms and legs, and they were covered with loess before they could be treated. It wasn't long before the water in the dammed lake passed Beichuan, and the bones and legs were exposed again, so we had to do it again. Seeing the ruins that were completely destroyed in front of us and the tens of thousands of people buried in the ruins, my eyes and those of my third sister were all wet. We took a deep breath and tried not to let tears cross our cheeks, because we knew that Beichuan didn't need tears now.