Lu Yuan gritted his teeth and could only take care of his family. After all, everyone was too busy to help each other at the moment, and Lu Yuan could only pray that the houses in the base would not suffer too much damage.
The hillside undulated like a blanket being tossed around, and the originally flat terrain seemed to be slowly sloping upwards in the distance.
Then the angle of inclination increased, and some huge rocks, unable to withstand the tremors of the earthquake, slowly slid down the mountainside.
The rumbling of the earthquake and the rolling boulders slowly approached from afar. Affected by the kinetic energy acceleration, the rocks continued to roll down the mountain from the top of the cliff. Some dead trees along the way were smashed to pieces. The boulders continued to roll, and occasionally, when they were tripped by a few stones below, they would bounce high up like a ball and then continue to roll down.
The boulder was rushing towards the camp, the most crowded area. Lu Yuan was extremely nervous. Due to the boulder's irregular shape, its rolling direction was unpredictable. Occasionally, it would be tripped up by small stones, jump high into the air, and then crash into an unpredictable direction.
The boulder rolled faster and faster, and soon it reached the vicinity of the camp.
The children and women screamed desperately, not knowing where to run, and could only follow the crowd aimlessly.
At times like these, people need to calm down. However, when their emotions are disturbed by the crisis, they are unable to make the right judgments, and this is precisely when they are most dangerous.
Seeing the boulder hurtling towards the crowd, Lu Yuan disregarded everything else and immediately pulled out his pistol, firing a shot into the sky.
A gunshot rang out, followed by a brief silence from the crowd. Lu Yuan, standing atop a high boulder, shouted at the crowd, "Run this way! Run this way!"
The group finally regained consciousness and saw that the boulder had struck the eastern part of the camp, while Lu Yuan's location was far away from the boulder.
So people crowded together and ran rapidly toward Lu Yuan, using almost all their strength to run forward.
However, the earthquake's intensity increased, and people could barely stand, let alone run. Many people fell to the ground before they could even run a few meters.
The boulder continued to roll towards the crowd, leaving a group of people lying motionless on the ground. In this final moment of crisis, they could only cover their eyes, trying to avoid a painful death, as they had no way to escape now.
Just at this critical moment, the boulder hit a small stone again, bounced high into the air, and then flew straight into the sky like a rough cannonball. Then, it slammed into the wall of a newly built pigsty, immediately collapsing the pigsty.
The giant tree, carrying a great deal of kinetic energy, tumbled into the pigpen. Then, a series of pitiful screams came from the pigpen. Many pigs were killed by the impact, while the remaining pigs, trapped in their cages, had no way to escape and could only scream desperately.
Seeing that the boulder hadn't crashed into the crowd, Lu Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the area destroyed by the boulder, he felt a wave of fear. He had already ordered people to reinforce all the rocks with cement, but he hadn't expected that rocks would still fall from the mountain. Lu Yuan knew that he couldn't blame anyone else; after all, with an earthquake of this magnitude, it seemed that cement was simply not enough to hold back the boulders on the mountain.
After a violent earthquake, the ground in the valley was completely deformed. Originally, there was an exit on the east and west sides, but now the strong earthquake has completely blocked the eastern exit. Rocks from the mountain kept rolling down, blocking the eastern exit. Now, the only exit for everyone is located on the west side of the mountain pass.
Lu Yuan steadied himself and looked around. The earthquake on the ground was still intensifying, but everyone seemed to have gotten used to the feeling. Lu Yuan felt a tightness in his chest, like he was on a boat and was seasick.
The earthquake lasted for about half an hour. The originally flat terrain has now become high in the west and low in the east, while the eastern area has been blocked by boulders. Fortunately, the group's base was located in the western part of the mountain pass. When Lu Yuan was building the houses there, he had strictly ordered the workers to build according to the standards required to withstand a violent earthquake.
He took out his binoculars and glanced into the base. It seemed that the earthquake had not had a major impact on the buildings. No buildings had collapsed. However, the earthquake had caused dust to slowly rise into the sky.
Although the continuous heavy rains made the entire base extremely humid, some areas were still cracked by the earthquake, and the sand and limestone from the cracks drifted into the sky.
After the earthquake finally subsided, the crowd was very noisy. Everyone felt like they had survived a disaster. After looking around at the people around him, Lu Yuan quickly instructed everyone to take their belongings back.
It was unknown how long the earthquake would last. Although the buildings in the base were particularly sturdy, Lu Yuan was unsure if the earthquake would damage them. He dared not take the risk, so he could only try to bring out as much food as possible while there was still no earthquake. They would need to spend a long time in this open area on the back mountain until the earthquake completely subsided.
After a brief preparation, Chen Bin came running over, looking disheveled and carrying his notebook, with a trace of grief on his face.
"President Lu, I just did a count. More than thirty people died in this earthquake, and the number of injured is still being tallied. I estimate there are at least several hundred more!"
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth. Such casualties were absolutely catastrophic for them. After all, in this time of medical shortage, people who are injured and do not receive treatment are extremely susceptible to infection.
If an infection occurs at this time and is not treated, the first thing that may happen is inflammation, followed by wound ulceration and other symptoms such as high fever or cold. In severe cases, it may even lead to organ failure. With hundreds of people injured, the test for doctors like Deng Yuanyuan is immense.
Although Lu Yuan had made preparations beforehand, he did not expect that his preparations would still be so inadequate after the earthquake. He had very little medicine and other supplies, which was unavoidable.
After all, two years after the apocalypse, the stockpiled medicines were basically exhausted. With the source of medicinal materials cut off, major pharmaceutical companies were no longer able to produce some of the medicines that humans needed. Not only in Lu Yuan's place, but also in some survivor bases with slightly better conditions, the lack of medical care and medicine was a common phenomenon.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
