On the evening of December 18, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Jishishan County, Linxia Prefecture, Gansu Province. Mountains and rivers shook, rescue vehicles roared past in the bitter cold winds, and the winter in the northwest was unusually dry, and the road to the earthquake area was dusty but unimpeded.
Zhongchuan Township, Minhe County, Haidong, Qinghai, bordering Jishishan County in Gansu Province, was more seriously affected. A large number of buildings in Caotan Village in Zhongchuan Township have suffered from roofless damage, and rescuers have been dredging at the scene.
Rescuers wade through a swamp.
Rescuers continue to remove mud from the buried house.
Jishi Mountain is an extension of the Qilian Mountains, and the landform here is mostly mountainous. Meipo Village, Jishishan County, is located on a small hillside. On the night of the earthquake, most of the adobe houses in the village collapsed, and many villagers were left homeless in the cold night. In the early morning of December 20, the rescue team of the 21st Bureau of China Railway rushed to Meipo Village with a detachable color steel plate house. With the completion of rows of sturdy prefabricated houses in the open space of the village, and the transportation of bedding, beds, dry food, coal stoves and other daily necessities up the mountain one after another, the hearts of the villagers gradually settled down, and there was a trace of life in the prefabricated houses: there were young mothers humming songs and coaxing the children in their arms to sleep; a large family of three generations sat around the fireplace and made a fire to cook; in order to keep warm from the wind, some villagers rebuilt a thick door curtain with a quilt and hung it nailed outside the door of the prefabricated house. The team expects to build 500 prefabricated houses so that all the affected villagers can live in them.
Villages flooded with mud.
In Meipo Village, Jishishan County, a large number of color steel plate houses are being built.
In Meipo Village, an old man stands at the door of a brand-new prefabricated house.
In Meipo Village, a mother coaxes her child to sleep in a newly built prefabricated house.
Dahejia Town, Jishishan County, was close to the epicenter and was severely affected. After the earthquake, the town square became the largest settlement. The buildings around the square have been severely damaged by the earthquake, and the entrance to the square is constantly being filled with vehicles carrying supplies, although it is a little crowded, but they are all courteous to each other, and try to keep the road as clear as possible.
In the square, a succession of emergency tents were quickly erected, and the affected people in the town were moved here. In the middle of the night, the temperature plummeted to minus ten degrees Celsius, and the most indispensable thing in the tent was the coal stove. Fortunately, the first thing to ensure in the relief supplies was the stove. Many tents have coal stoves in the center, on which are placed hot water kettles, white steamed buns, instant noodles, etc., and the smoke exhaust pipe of the stove sticks out from the top of the tent, and the white smoke slowly drifts away. Inside and outside the tent, cold and warm poles.
On the square of the resettlement site in Dahejia Town, caring businesses provided hot food to the affected people.
In the tents of the resettlement site in Dahejia Town, everyone eats around the fire.
In the largest settlement in Dahejia Township, Jishishan County, a group of children are playing on a seesaw.
There is a medical center in the resettlement site in Dahejia Town, which examines the health of the affected people and prescribes medicine for treatment.
In addition to emergency tents, the most common food stalls in the square are food supply stalls. Many caring businesses in the local and surrounding areas spontaneously came to help the victims, taking out the ingredients from their stores, bringing pots and pans, and pushing small carts to the resettlement site, providing hot meals and hot meals for the affected people free of charge. Here, the most popular food is undoubtedly beef noodles. On the first day after the earthquake, a local company prepared 1,000 catties of beef and 50 bags of noodles, which were cooked on a stove at the resettlement site. A noodle master said that usually in the noodle restaurant, they have to make noodles by hand, and at the end of the day, they have to mix more than 700 catties of noodles, kneading the dough so that the palms are red and swollen. There has been a long queue in front of the noodle stall, and the beef noodles that have just come out of the pot are still steaming, and they are held in their hands, like a hand warmer.
Many caring businesses boiled water and freshly cooked ramen noodles at the resettlement site, providing warm beef noodles for the affected people.
A little girl sits at the door of the tent and smiles at the camera.
Liu Rongsheng, a young man from Henan, originally drove his hearing-impaired mother to travel around the country, and when he saw the sudden earthquake in Jishi Mountain, he drove to the resettlement site in Dahejia Town to support. He said that his mother had set up a stall to cut her hair before, and they wanted to cut hair for free for people in the earthquake area, and set up a card with the words, "Don't be afraid, let's get through this together."
Liu Rongsheng, a young man from Henan Province who originally took his hearing-impaired mother on a road trip, heard the news of the earthquake and came to support. At the resettlement site in Dahejia Township, hearing-impaired mothers cut the hair of the affected people.
Photo: Zhou Wei