Text/Chen Long
Editor/Sydney King
Before and after the Luding 6.8 earthquake, glacier rescue and mountain guides xiaofeng spent 48 hours in the epicenter conch ditch.
At the time of the earthquake on the afternoon of September 5, Xiaofeng and his friends were drinking tea in a wooden building in the hailuogou mountains. At one point, a sudden seismic wave shook the entire house. After that, he walked around the epicenter, helping some village groups set up tents and observing the damage in the surrounding villages and towns.
Crowds gathered in the safety of the square after the earthquake. (The pictures in this article are all taken by Xiao Feng)
Xiaofeng participated in the rescue of the 2008 May 12 Wenchuan earthquake, and participated in the post-earthquake psychological intervention in Hongbai Town, Shifang City, 100 kilometers away from the epicenter, for up to 4 months. After the Wenchuan earthquake, all kinds of rescue teams in China have grown and expanded, the professionalism has been greatly improved, and the awareness and level of disaster prevention and rescue in the whole society have also been improved as a whole.
After experiencing the Luding earthquake 14 years later, Xiaofeng saw that the whole society had grown in self-protection and assistance. Armed police, fire brigades, civilian rescue teams and other teams made rapid responses at the first time, effectively reducing the loss of life after the disaster.
The following is Xiao Feng's dictation:
"There is the roar of mountain collapse everywhere"
I am now at the Ganzi Vocational College in Moxi Town. Because there is relatively little open space in the town, the tents on the football field of Ganzi Vocational College are basically impossible to put up.
There are several large squares in the town, also filled with fire, rescue teams and temporary command posts from all over the world. Including the Ganzi armed police and special police, they were the first to come and were stationed in the square.
After nightfall, the Moxi Town Disaster Victim Resettlement Square.
When the earthquake struck September 5, I was at a friend's house in Yanzigou Town. Yanzigou Town is next to the Yanzigou Scenic Area, and the distance from Moxi Town is six or seven kilometers, and the two towns are basically next to each other.
The earthquake was very strong, the house shook very badly, really a bit of a 2008 Wenchuan feeling. Just a short time. We were drinking tea on the second floor by a fish pond. That small building is a wooden frame structure of the Yi people. At that time, all of us thought that the building would dump on the edge of the fish pond. The earthquake shook the building so much that it felt like it couldn't stand at all, and my friend pressed the table with his hand to fix himself. It feels like if you don't stabilize yourself with the help of external objects, you will fall.
After the earthquake was over, we hurried downstairs. Because it was so close to the mountain, I heard the sound of stones collapsing on the surrounding mountains. Perhaps the first main earthquake has loosened the mountain earthquake, the stones and sand are very fragile, every 10 minutes, half an hour, you can hear the roar of the collapse of the mountain in different places, which may be caused by aftershocks. From the afternoon of the 5th to the evening, that sound has been ringing.
After the earthquake, there was a general landslide, which made a rumbling sound.
After the earthquake, my friend and I went to the primary school and kindergarten in Moxi Town for the first time to pick up his children. By the time they arrived, the students were well organized by the teacher and were already on the empty playground. After signing, the parents picked up the child.
Back in Yanzigou Town, we took a turn and found that the village was fine, only a few houses collapsed. The local government has reacted quickly and is already organizing self-help. Then I went to the town of Moxi and saw a collapsed house, as if there were casualties, and everyone's energy was focused there.
In the town of Moxi, a house collapsed in its entirety.
Later, I helped them set up tents in makeshift settlements in the town and in several surrounding villages. Because everyone was not very skilled, we helped everywhere until 12 o'clock in the middle of the night.
At first, local communications were interrupted and aid supplies did not follow. At about six or seven o'clock in the evening, everyone was ready to go to the tent, and some people who had not received the quilt returned home and carried their quilts.
Two days after the earthquake, I walked around the neighborhood a few times, and each murakami was arranged by myself, and in the slightly open place, I set up some temporary resettlement sites according to the group. Small resettlement sites, usually only five or six tents.
In the town of Moxi, two inn houses have completely collapsed, and some houses have been partially damaged, but not very seriously. There were some casualties in the town, but fortunately, mainly some of the surrounding mountain villages were in a more serious situation.
The earthquake damaged houses in Moxi Town.
For example, in Caiyang Village and Gonghe Village on the other side of the river, there have been many mountain collapses. The river in the middle is about 3 meters deep. Because it had been raining for the first few days of the earthquake, the river ditch was swollen, so the water flow was very turbulent, mixed with sand and rolling stones. On the river, the bridge has not been repaired.
On the evening of September 5, a few hours after the earthquake, I saw armed police forces temporarily build a bridge over the river beach to rescue the wounded from the other side of the river. Because of the first aid, the bridge was not very strong, and it was later damaged by the river. Today (September 6), the Armed Police Force built another steel-framed bridge.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, I stayed there for three or four months
I arrived in Swallow Gully on August 29th. At that time, the epidemic situation in Chengdu was getting worse and worse, and my friends here invited me to come over.
Those days, I was basically at my friend's house in Yanzigou. Usually go to the surrounding mountains to walk around, chat, fish. All in all a more leisurely getaway.
I am from Hunan. I was in Inner Mongolia when I was in Inner Mongolia when I was in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Later, through online registration, I joined a team of volunteers who were recruited and organized temporarily. We set up our base camp in Hongbai Town, Shifang City, which was more severely affected, and from the beginning it was to rescue people - to save people first, to help search for survivors and victims from the rubble.
The damage from that earthquake was so great that not only tens of thousands of people lost their lives, but many of those who were alive also lost faith. At that time, the data was that in Shifang, a county-level city, 461,400 houses collapsed and 1,502,900 were damaged, and more than 95% of the houses were damaged and collapsed in the mountainous areas and the hard-hit towns along the mountainous areas, and they were almost razed to the ground; The city's population of 430,000, 5,924 deaths, 208 missing, 33,075 injured; More than 40 primary and secondary schools in the city collapsed, killing 597 teachers and students and injuring more than 2,800 people.
Red and White was one of the towns with the worst casualties, and only two houses in the market town did not collapse. So we collected supplies in Hongbai Town, set up some tent primary schools, contacted many psychological experts, and did some psychological interventions for the children.
Psychological intervention is a long process. So we stayed there for three or four months, and by the way, we were involved in some reconstruction work.
At that time, as long as there were colleges and universities with psychology majors, they basically participated in the post-disaster reconstruction of the Wenchuan earthquake and formed a coalition for psychological intervention after the Wenchuan earthquake. What I remember very clearly is that many of the colleges and universities we docked with, professors brought their students over, and many students established relationships with (Shifang) students, often visited their homes, and did one-on-one individual interventions. As a result, many (psychology) students couldn't stand it and collapsed first.
I have not studied psychology, but I feel that psychological intervention must stand in the other person's point of view to say, to think about all the problems, to feel empathy. In the matter of empathy, everyone's bottom line is different, and if the ability to bear it is not strong enough, it may collapse. It's like a garbage dumping process, you keep dumping garbage in the trash can, and finally the trash can't stand it.
Our volunteer team, at most more than 300 people, divided into many teams, divided into division of labor. Some do tent schools, some do data collection.
Volunteer teams play a big role in disaster relief. I remember when I first arrived in Yingxiu Town, the river there formed a dammed lake, and there was a ginkgo township in the upper reaches of the lake, and few people went in. We should have been the first team to go in and find that there was no supplies in that place. We thought that the earthquake had been almost a month and all the places had been covered, but we did not expect that there was such a blind spot near the central point (Note: In August 2019, Ginkgo Township was abolished and assigned to Yingxiu Town).
Compared with Wenchuan, the earthquake rescue speed is very fast
Objectively speaking, when the Wenchuan earthquake occurred, our rescue experience and ability were insufficient. For example, Ginkgo Township was ignored because the information communication was not smooth, and there was no media interview to that piece. Road congestion is the main cause. At that time, the construction of the bridge and the opening of the road were also temporary designed. I remember going to a special boat bridge unit, stationed in the location of the dammed lake, and when the truck pulling the supplies approached, it was necessary to drive to the top of the boat bridge, cross the river, and then drive up from a temporary road.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, our post-disaster emergency rescue gradually formed a relatively complete system.
Over the years, from the training of rescue teams, the speed of post-disaster response, the experience of scientific rescue methods, and the advanced scientific and technological equipment, they have all improved by dozens of times compared with Wenchuan. In addition to the fire armed police force, various civilian rescue teams have also been established, and the professionalism has also been greatly improved. Wild rescue includes high altitude (rope), mountain, water, urban search and rescue, as well as demolition, earthquake rescue, etc., everyone will go to practice. Individual capabilities have been improved in various subdivisions, such as water lifesaving, which is divided into water rubber boat (RIB) operation, wave rescue, still water lifesaving, rapids lifesaving, search and rescue diving, vehicle salvage, water demolition and other subjects.
The popularity of technical equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles has allowed many of the original basic technologies to be played to a greater extent. For example, UAV + thermal imaging, UAV + aerial lighting, UAV aerial signal base station, and DJI series of unmanned aerial vehicles can be applied in photography, search, and transportation of materials.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, our rescue experience has accumulated. This is a comforting thing. The magnitude of the Luding earthquake is relatively small, and a few search and rescue teams are sent at random, and everyone knows how to deal with various situations.
On the afternoon of September 5, before 3 o'clock, I went to the town of Yanzigou and found that the professional teams of Kangding armed police and Ganzi special police had already come. Kangding was originally very close to the conch ditch, turning over a mountain, which is more than an hour's drive. This reaction is really fast.
Later, the Chengdu "Flying Leopard" earthquake rapid rescue team, the "Flying Cat" high-altitude rope rescue team, and the civil rescue teams such as blue leopard, extraordinary, and red cross also quickly came in. Many rescue teams, now have their own specialties, and have also been learning new things and introducing new technical equipment over the years. Some teams' rescue technology is the best in China, and may be able to compete with foreign countries.
Because the river to the south is wide, the river is turbulent, and both sides are very high. When the armed police and firefighters transport the wounded, the descent and landing are very steep, and the temporary bridge is not stable, and it is not easy to cross the river. I saw officers and men of the armed police carrying seven or eight wounded from Caiyang Village and Gonghe Village on the other side, including an old man of sixty or seventy years old, who had a head injury and made a simple bandage. If the stretcher is not safe, the armed police will carry the person over.
The wounded were placed nearby at the Ganzi Prefecture Skin Disease Prevention and Treatment Hospital in Moxi Town, and the more seriously injured were sent to a large hospital outside for treatment.
After experiencing the Wenchuan earthquake, I developed some feelings for this place in Sichuan and decided to stay in Chengdu. After a period of volunteer team, he later began to contact the outdoor mountaineering industry and joined the Sichuan Provincial Mountain Rescue Corps in recent years. Sichuan's mountain resources are very rich, there are many snowy mountains, and what we do is high-altitude mountain rescue, including snow and glaciers, which is more difficult and professional.
At night, by the tent, the Yi villagers lit a bonfire
On the afternoon of the 5th, communications in several towns in Hailuogou were interrupted for several hours. At about 6 p.m., the rescue team drove a mobile communication launch vehicle, and communication was resumed. However, the signal is weak, and it is not clear to talk to friends. Today (6th), the communication base station and signal tower should be repaired, and I can directly use the mobile phone network to contact the outside world.
Because many friends know that I am in Hailuogou, I received more than 60 missed calls in a day from the 5th to the 6th. Many of my friends in the climbing circle are concerned about my safety, and there are probably more than 200 greeting messages. So as soon as the signal was restored on the evening of the 5th, I sent a circle of friends to report that everyone was safe. Because I really can't reply.
In the affected mountain villages, villagers set up simple "tents" and ate outdoors.
Everyone is in one place, what they see is only a point around them, and what they understand is one-sided information. Like everyone else, I didn't expect the casualty figure to be so large at first. In the next two days, I found that the number of casualties continued to increase, the death toll from more than a dozen to more than 20, and then to more than 30, and now 56, I was also very shocked (Note: According to the official report, as of 21:00 on September 6, the 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Luding, Sichuan Province, has killed 74 people, including 40 people killed in Ganzi Prefecture and 34 people in Ya'an City. In addition, 14 people were missing and 170 people were injured in Ganzi Prefecture, and 12 people were missing and 89 people were injured in Ya'an City).
Combined with my previous experience, I probably know where such large casualties will occur.
Luding County, Asbestos County, and the townships below are all built along the Dadu River and some of the tributaries along the river valley, the mountains are dense, the houses are very close to the mountains, and the roads are also built along the river valley. When the earthquake struck, the mountain collapsed, and stones rolled everywhere, hitting or burying vehicles and pedestrians on the road. I feel that more people were killed and injured on the road this time than those who were injured by the collapse of houses.
Including now (the afternoon of the 6th), some village roads in the Hailuogou scenic spot have not yet been opened. We don't know much about the casualties in Gonghe Village and Caiyang Village. I heard some rescue teams say that there were several accidents on the way from Asbestos County to Hailuogou, all of which were hit by rolling stones in the car.
Recently, Chengdu has been closed down due to the epidemic, and everyone is at home. If it weren't for the lockdown, there would have been more vehicles on the road, and I think the number of casualties this time would be far more than that.
There is a middle mountain peak in Luding County, which is the second peak of the Gongga Mountain Range of the "King of Shu Mountain", plus there are a few friends here, so I have scattered to Hailuogou at least 30 times. Hailuogou Scenic Area usually has a lot of tourists. When I came on August 29th, there were still some people in Moxi Town, and then I stayed for two days, and every time I came to town, there were fewer and fewer people. Come in the evening for a late-night snack, only a few shops are open, and they are basically locals.
After the earthquake, everyone still has the spirit of mutual help. On May 12, everyone's homes were destroyed, so they all ate together. This time, some houses were smashed and could not be cooked, so the neighbors set up pots outside, finished cooking, and invited the neighbors around them to eat together.
After the disaster, the people of the mountain village ate collectively outdoors.
Today, the town's residents and rescue teams are scattered in a few squares, playgrounds and open spaces. Later, some centralized management may be adopted, such as the construction of some tent primary schools. Because the risk of aftershocks is still relatively large, the house may collapse twice, and at night, people can basically only live outside.
On the afternoon of the 6th, there was another relatively strong aftershock, which was a slow and leisurely shaking, as if someone had pushed you hard, but the time was short. At that time, you can hear the rumbling of the mountain in the distance, and the stones are beginning to roll down again.
That night, everyone lived in a tent, calm and orderly. There are more Yi people here, and it is a little cold at night, so everyone likes to light a campfire outside the tent, chat, or drink some wine. I feel that everyone is not too panicked, but can still face the disaster very calmly.
On the night after the earthquake in Moxi Town, the Yi people lit a bonfire in the square to roast the fire.
I will also spend some time here, doing the necessary psychological intervention for the casualties and their families in the earthquake, helping to set up some tents, coordinate and transport supplies, or do some introduction and guidance work for the rescue team from outside.
On a larger area, some places are still seriously affected, and the geological conditions here are more dangerous than the recent Jiuzhaigou earthquake. I have a friend in Gonghe Village, and it is said that the losses there are relatively large (Note: According to preliminary statistics on September 6, 3 people in Gonghe Village were unfortunately killed in the earthquake and 6 people were seriously injured).
I crossed the river on the afternoon of the 6th, went to Caiyang Village to see, chatted with the villagers, and it is said that Ganzi Prefecture will send militias one after another. There was also the town of Detuo, which also suffered heavy casualties. Friends in Caoke Township, Ya'an Asbestos County, have not been able to contact each other so far, and the roads and communication base stations there have been destroyed, and the casualties are also very serious.
It is hoped that the follow-up rescue teams, materials and media will focus on these hard-hit areas. May from now on, our skills be useless.