The sky was slightly bright, and the fiery red sunlight spread all over the earth, setting off the desolate and devastated post-earthquake land.
Cheng Suming was walking on a wide road carrying Si Nan on his back. The road was broken into pieces with bottomless cracks everywhere. A large amount of garbage and vehicles were piled up on the cracks. From time to time, vehicle garbage fell into the cracks, and no sound could be heard when it fell to the ground.
The roads they walked on were all covered with garbage trucks. Many times, the location of the cracks could not be seen, and if one was not careful, one would fall into the cracks. Therefore, Cheng Suming walked very carefully.
They had been walking for about two hours. There were piles of rubble everywhere. Under each pile of rubble were a large number of people waiting to be rescued, as well as cold corpses.
Along the way, they saw many people covered in black ash, standing or lying beside the ruins on the roadside. Many of them had empty and desperate eyes, as if they had not recovered from the earthquake.
There were also many lucky people. An entire family fell to the ground as the high-rise building collapsed. Apart from some minor injuries, they were basically fine. The family hugged each other and cried, feeling lucky to have survived the disaster.
There were also relatively calm and rational people who spontaneously formed a rescue team and worked together to dig out the injured people who were not buried so deeply nearby, one by one.
What touched Sinan the most was that when they passed a temporary shelter, they saw a large number of intact people gathered next to the collapsed office buildings.
They were following the orders of officers and soldiers in army green uniforms, moving like stars in the sky, covering an area of two kilometers. Regardless of the danger of aftershocks, everyone moved all the construction materials from the nearby ruins with their bare hands. Everyone worked together to rescue the people buried under the rubble.
Cheng Suming stopped there for a while with Si Nan on his back. He heard people moving construction materials and talking about what happened during the earthquake. He finally understood why hundreds of thousands of people here were not injured.
It turned out that after natural disasters occurred one after another, the rumor about the doomsday warning post attracted the attention of the Xingcheng government and national leaders.
Before the water level rose to the fifth floor, the state had sent relevant departments to search for the poster based on the IP address.
But the two posters were obviously well prepared. They did not use their own Internet IPs when posting, but instead used public network areas such as Internet cafes, shopping malls, and libraries to post.
No authentic ID card or mobile phone number was used to apply for an account. The surveillance at that time was a long time ago and it was impossible to eliminate them one by one. Apart from knowing that the IP of one of them was shown in Xingcheng, they knew nothing about the information of the two posters.
Even so, the doomsday warning post posted by the poster was still taken seriously by the relevant departments of the country. The leaders of the relevant departments know that the actual sequence of natural disasters may be different from the warning time of natural disasters, and have always emphasized that local city government departments must keep network information unobstructed and contact relevant national departments at any time to prepare for the next major disaster.
In this way, during the nearly one-year period when almost the entire city of Xingcheng was without electricity and network, and there was no signal, more than a dozen large temporary shelters in Xingcheng had been struggling to maintain a small amount of power and network signals to communicate with the national control departments in Kyoto.
Half an hour before an earthquake strikes, the staff of the National Earthquake Department stays in front of various seismic instruments and equipment. When they detect abnormal geological activities, they almost jump up immediately to repeatedly observe the seismic waves of the quartz pendulum sensor, and then check the electrometers, water pipe meters and other special earthquake early warning equipment.
When they confirmed that a major earthquake was about to strike, they notified the relevant national departments without any hesitation. The Ministry of Communications contacted the earthquake departments in cities across the country to conduct local monitoring and then issue early warnings.
Because previous earthquakes occurred in various places and each place conducted self-monitoring and warning, unlike now, which is happening simultaneously across the country and even the world. Therefore, when Kyoto issued a warning, various places conducted accurate monitoring in their provinces and cities, which delayed a lot of time and only had time to notify people in temporary shelters to evacuate.
Not long after the people in the temporary shelter ran downstairs in an orderly manner under the intimidation of armed military and police, the earthquake struck as warned.
After experiencing and witnessing the devastating earthquake with their own eyes, everyone felt not only fear but also gratitude.
Most of the people who come to temporary shelters have nowhere else to go, are short of supplies, and have no choice but to come to temporary shelters to seek protection from the national government.
But there are a large number of people in the shelter, and there are all kinds of people. The number of soldiers responsible for maintaining law and order is limited. Many people do things that break the bottom line under the noses of the soldiers just for a little food and water. The people in the shelter are living in misery.
Those of them who still lived at home and had some food and supplies stored up despised and mocked them for a long time, thinking that the people in the shelters were a bunch of snakes and rats, and that they were hopeless and could not be helped.
After being ridiculed for so long, the people in the shelter have become numb and are basically in a mentality of giving up.
Now, in the face of such a huge earthquake disaster, they finally realized the importance of national government management. No matter what happens in normal times, at least they are still alive and well now, and can use their own hands to help those who live outside and are buried under the rubble.
They have a sense of pride and empathy for their fellow countrymen who are suffering in the face of great disasters.
Everyone, including the elderly and children, did their best to surround the tall ruins and search for the living people buried beneath the ruins.
Seeing their expressions, Si Nan recalled a popular saying on the Internet before the natural disaster: "Most people in Country Z have weird behaviors or small flaws that are annoying to people, and they often criticize each other for trivial matters. But when faced with a disaster, people in Country Z can put aside their past grudges, unite as one, and fight against all difficulties together. This is probably the unique belief and romance of people in Country Z."
Cheng Suming and the other person only stayed for less than a minute before continuing to walk towards the hospital.
About an hour later, they arrived at the hospital.
The place has been razed to the ground, with only mountains of rubble and building materials. Many people are running around in the rubble to save people. There are also many people with broken limbs, who are howling in pain, covering their own broken limbs that are bleeding and showing their cold white bones.
More often than not, corpses with pale faces and no breath were dug out and placed on an open space nearby, waiting to be claimed by their families.
Many of the corpses were not complete, with many having broken limbs and arms, and some even had their entire bodies broken at the waist by large pieces of buildings. When they were pulled out from the rubble, their internal organs, intestines and flesh were scattered all over the ground. Many people vomited after seeing this.
When Si Nan saw this scene, his face turned pale and his stomach churned.
However, her psychological endurance was much better than that of ordinary people. After all, before the natural disaster, she often watched science fiction doomsday zombie movies with meals. So she endured the discomfort in her stomach and let Cheng Suming put her down.
Seeing that she looked unhappy, Cheng Suming reached out to support her and asked, "Do you want to find a seat somewhere else and sit down to rest for a while?"
"Okay." Sinan did not refuse.
Anyone would feel shocked and unable to bear facing so many corpses appearing right in front of him/her at once.
Si Nan was not strong enough to remain indifferent in the face of those corpses. Besides, Cheng Su Ming had carried her for almost three hours and he needed to rest, so Si Nan did not refuse.
The two went to a relatively open place nearby where they could vaguely see a flower bed and sat down. Si Nan asked Cheng Su Ming if he was hungry and if he wanted to eat something. Cheng Su Ming said he was not hungry for the time being, so she sat next to him, took out a pair of inconspicuous gray fur slippers from the space, and put them on her injured foot.
The two sat for a while and felt their strength gradually recovering. Cheng Suming found a survivor from the hospital and asked him approximately where the ward area where Sheng Youqing's family lived was. The two walked around the dangerous cracks and ruins and came to a hill of ruins.
This is the inpatient area. When the earthquake struck, there were at least 50,000 patients staying here and not leaving. Under the rubble were cries of grief and help, and people nearby were desperately trying to dig up building materials to save people.
Si Nan's eyes turned red. Before coming here, she had been praying in her heart that Sheng Youqing and his family could escape safely.
But just now, she and Cheng Suming walked around all the ruins where the hospital was located, but they didn't see any trace of their family. She knew in her heart that Sheng Youqing and the others were probably buried in the ruins.
In this situation, even though she knew Sheng Youqing and her family might not be able to hear her, she still shouted at the top of her voice: "Youqing, Sheng Youqing! I'm Sinan, I'm here to find you, where are you? If you can hear my voice, find a way to give me a signal!"
However, all around her were the voices of people calling for their relatives and friends. Those who were trapped under the rubble but not dead were desperately calling for help, or hitting the building materials with objects to send signals to people on the ground. Even if Sheng Youqing was still alive and made a sound, she could not hear it.
Cheng Suming held her back and said, "Stop shouting. Let's help move the construction materials. Maybe we can see them sooner."
In this way, the two of them, together with the few survivors outside the ruins, moved the movable building materials little by little on the ruins that could collapse at any time.
In coastal cities after the earthquake, people are also trying to save themselves.
When people finally rescued many people buried under the rubble, a loud rumbling sound came.
Between the few buildings that were of good quality and still standing, a high wall of water, wrapped in debris and garbage, was rushing towards the people who were trying to rescue people.
"Oh my god, what is that?" Some people saw this scene and opened their eyes wide in shock. They dropped the bricks in their hands and muttered to themselves, "Could it be a tsunami caused by the earthquake?"
"Good God! Why is the water so high?"
"It's a tsunami! Everyone run!"
"Run to higher ground!"
But they had just experienced an earthquake, and most of the tall buildings were destroyed by the earthquake. The coastal cities and high mountainous areas were all far away, so there was no high place to run to.
Many people gave up running resignedly, hugged their relatives and family members tightly, closed their eyes, and waited for death to come.
There were also people who were unwilling to give up and tried their best to climb up the ruins on higher ground or onto the trees that were not knocked down by the earthquake, or they held their children in their arms or carried the elderly on their backs and ran inland.
But they could not outrun the roaring tsunami. The nearly 20-meter-high tsunami swept away all the garbage, building materials, abandoned vehicles and humans along the way with a devastating force. People could only scream and struggle in despair.
Some people desperately held on to their children, trying to grab onto trees and floating objects that were washed away by the water along the way, in order to give their children a chance to survive. However, the moment they let go, the children were washed away by the water.
When the parents watched their children being washed away, unable to hold on to them, they let out shrill, desperate cries, gave up struggling, and were washed away with their children.
Someone crashed into a tall building that was still standing and managed to grab the window railings, but he was no match for the force of the rushing water. He soon ran out of strength and let go, disappearing in the fast-flowing water.
......
The merciless tsunami swept away everything in the low-lying coastal cities. A large number of people and corpses were wrapped in the water, and countless construction waste, vehicles and trees were drifting up and down together.
A new hell on earth is unfolding in coastal cities.
Si Nan didn't know how much construction materials she had moved or how many people she had saved. Her hands were covered with blisters and blood, and her body, face, and head were covered in dirty black ash. She couldn't see her original appearance clearly, and she had no intention of stopping to rest.
She felt that if she moved a little more construction materials, Sheng Youqing's family buried under the rubble could be rescued sooner. No matter how Cheng Suming advised her to rest, she remained unmoved.
Just like that, from morning to noon, and from noon to evening, suddenly a middle-aged man cried out in surprise and suppressed excitement: "The People's Liberation Army is here! The People's Liberation Army is here to save our relatives and friends!"
All the people who were moving construction materials in the ruins stopped what they were doing, looked in the direction the old man was shouting.
In the ruined streets in the distance, a long line of soldiers wearing military green uniforms, carrying green marching bags on their backs and holding various ropes and rescue equipment in their hands, ran towards them in unison.
Every time they pass a ruin, the army will send out a small team to provide quick rescue.
Among those teams, there are firefighters wearing orange fire uniforms, and each team is even led by a well-trained search and rescue dog!
Everyone was shocked by this scene. No one expected that after two years of natural disasters and such a big disaster, the country could send so many soldiers and firefighters out for rescue in a short period of time, and even raise search and rescue dogs in the case of food shortages!
As expected, Country Z is famous for being prepared for danger in times of peace and making preparations for a rainy day. The country is accumulating all its strength in places that ordinary people cannot see, and will spare no effort to rescue all the people in times of great disasters.
Everyone was excited, and the deep-seated belief that they trusted the country and that the people's soldiers would unconditionally help the people was ignited.
Someone cried excitedly: "The People's Liberation Army is here, my husband is saved, saved, wuwuwuwu."
Some people excitedly waved to the army: "Comrades of the People's Liberation Army, here, I have a lot of buried people, they are all still alive, comrades of the Liberation Army, come and save them!"
"Everyone, don't get excited, don't kneel down and cry. Our troops have received orders from our superiors. All soldiers in the regiment will do their best to rescue all trapped people nearby! Don't worry about other places. Our comrades are rescuing people in all areas of Xingcheng. A large number of tents and first aid supplies will be delivered to accommodate everyone later. Please try your best to cooperate with our actions. Let us work together to overcome the difficulties!"
After a middle-aged officer in his forties said this, all the troops and firefighters separated to carry out the rescue in an orderly manner.
Soon from the ruins came the sounds of search and rescue dogs barking, and the military and civilians working together to rescue.
At night, various flashlight lights were lit up in the ruins. Sinan had been busy all day and was exhausted. When he stood up after moving a steel bar, his eyes went dark and his body fell backwards.
"Anan!" Cheng Suming, who was always paying attention to her physical condition, saw that she was in a bad condition and reached out to support her, "How are you?"
"I'm fine." Si Nan shook his head weakly: "I feel a little dizzy, I'll be fine after a rest."
Cheng Su Ming looked at her worn fingers in the dim light, his heart aching slightly. He picked her up by the waist and walked towards the military tent stationed in the open area of the hospital.
There were many square army green military tents stationed there. There were electric wires outside the tents, and several diesel generators were placed there, rumbling away. A dozen bright white light bulbs were lit, illuminating the entire stationing area so that people could barely see clearly.
Cheng Su Ming held Si Nan and sat down on the ground outside the tent. He wanted her to sit in his arms, eat and drink something, and then he would hold her and sleep for a while.
Unexpectedly, a female volunteer in a red vest came over with a registration book in her hand and asked them: "Are you a patient or family member of this hospital? This lady seems to be injured. Go to the army tent to see the military doctor. Please register with me before you go. You can go to the tent to rest after the doctor's visit."
Si Nan and his friend cooperated very well in registering. The volunteer wrote them a note with a door number, and asked them to go to the tent in front to check on their injuries, and then go to the tent next door to get a bowl of hot porridge with the note.
Cheng Suming thanked her, but did not carry Si Nan to the military medical tent, nor did he take her to get supplies. Instead, he went directly to the tent where their number was.
After the disaster, all the officers and soldiers in Xingcheng were working overtime to rescue the trapped people. Most of the rescued people were seriously injured and needed a large number of military doctors and medical staff to treat them.
There were only five or six military doctors in the military tent, plus more than a dozen doctors and nurses in the hospital who were not injured. They were all rescuing the injured and were too busy to handle it. How could Cheng Suming take Si Nan with him and cause trouble?
There is a shortage of supplies now, with cracks in the ground and ruins blocking the road everywhere. All the army's supplies are carried by the soldiers on foot. He and Sinan have food and drinks in their bags, and they don't want to ask for the hard-earned food.
There was a volunteer in front of each tent who was responsible for registering and collecting notes. Cheng Suming handed the note over, and the other party didn't say anything and let them go in directly.
After Cheng Su Ming carried Si Nan in, he found that there were many people gathered in the tent, including men, women, young and old. The volunteers used branches to divide each person into an area no more than two meters long and wide. Numbers were written in front of the area, and the people were allocated according to the number of people or relatives and friends. Couples like Cheng Su Ming and Si Nan were assigned to a smaller area.
The tents we set up now mainly serve the purpose of protecting against rain and moisture. There is no padding under the tent. If you want to rest more comfortably, you have to prepare something to pad yourself.
Many people dug through the rubble nearby and found some mattresses, clothes, sheets, quilts and other items that had collapsed from the hospital. They did not mind the dirt and used them as cushions in the area where they were.
It is winter now. If you don’t put something on the ground at night, you will catch a cold if you lie on the ground.
Cheng Suming carried Si Nan to their assigned area and sat her down. He touched her forehead and said, "Eat something and drink some to regain some strength. I'll go out and find a cushion to bring in."
There were many people in the tent, and no matter how many supplies there were in Si Nan's space, it was impossible to take them out in front of everyone.
Si Nan's complexion was not good and she looked very tired. Cheng Su Ming wanted her to have a good sleep in the tent, so he had no choice but to go with the flow.
He was lucky. After searching for a while, he found a relatively intact mattress. He cleaned the black ash on the mattress and carried it into the tent. Si Nan had already fallen asleep leaning on his backpack.
There was a kind-hearted lady nearby who covered her with a down jacket she had picked up. When she saw him coming in, she said to him, "Your wife looks very tired. I just saw that all ten of her fingers were rubbed bloody. How many bricks and building materials must she have moved to get rubbed like that? Is she looking for someone?"
"Her friend's family was buried under the rubble of the inpatient department. She wanted to rescue them long ago, so she worked so hard to move bricks."
Cheng Suming walked over, thanked the aunt, took out a first aid kit from his backpack, cleaned and bandaged Si Nan's finger, and then said to the aunt: "Auntie, could you please help me put a cushion under it."
"Oh, no problem, no trouble."
He gently picked up Si Nan, and the aunt quickly placed the mat he found in their area, and asked curiously: "What kind of friend is worthy of her risking her life to save him?"
"We are probably friends for life and death." Cheng Suming put Si Nan on the mat and used her backpack as a pillow for her to sleep more comfortably. He turned around and took out two snow cakes from his backpack and stuffed them into the old lady's hand: "Auntie, my wife and I have been moving construction materials for a whole day and have saved many people. We are very tired now and want to have a good sleep. Can you help us keep an eye on the packages?"
The old lady was in awe when she heard him say that. She finally realized why the couple looked so familiar. After thinking carefully, she realized that they were busy rescuing people in the ruins of the inpatient department during the day. She patted her chest and said, "Don't worry, I will help you take care of the packages. This is a military tent. No one dares to steal."
Cheng Suming smiled and said, "Thank you for your help. I'll sleep for a few hours and then I'll get up in the middle of the night to take your place."
"It's okay, no need to change. We have three adults and one child in our family. We can take turns on duty. You don't have to get up. Just sleep a little longer."
Everyone who has survived to this day is very vigilant. The aunt understands Cheng Suming's thoughts and feels obliged to do so.
She wanted to give the two snow cakes in her hand to her little grandson who was playing next to her and had been hit on the head by construction materials and had to get several stitches, so she nodded and agreed without hesitation.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
