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It has been 16 years since the Wenchuan earthquake, does anyone still remember the Chinese soldiers who sacrificed their lives and forgot to die?
On May 12, 2008, there were 88 days left before the Beijing Olympics. But no one knows which will come first, tomorrow or otherwise. At 2:28 p.m., a magnitude 8 earthquake struck Wenchuan County, Sichuan.
The earthquake cut off the contact between the disaster area and the outside world, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army sent a "death squad" to enter the disaster area from an altitude of 4,000 meters in order to obtain the specific situation of the disaster area.
In the north of Mianyang, Sichuan, there is such a small county seat. The county has long been empty, but the buildings still have the same appearance as they were in 2008, but many of the buildings have fallen from place to place, and some places are even in ruins.
This county seat is Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, which was also the hardest hit area by the Wenchuan earthquake.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, all the buildings here were devastated, but the center of the prefecture has been preserved intact and is the only earthquake disaster site in the world to have been preserved in situ.
The county seat of Beichuan is located at the foot of the mountain, and it takes only 15 minutes to walk from one end of the county seat to the other. Now, 16 years later, when I come here again, I can still get a glimpse of what the earthquake looked like.
The Beichuan Hotel was the most luxurious hotel in the county at that time, and this 7-story building was the favorite place for Beichuan citizens to hold wedding banquets before the earthquake, and many people took refuge here when the earthquake occurred.
But now there are only six floors left in the hotel, and the original first floor was smashed directly into the ground by the earthquake. Because the entire county was built at the foot of the mountain, after the earthquake, the boulders on the mountain rolled down, and many buildings were buried by the toppled mountain in an instant.
Today, there is a national flag standing at the foot of the mountain in Beichuan, which is the playground of Maoba Middle School. At that time, the school was washed away by the torrent on the mountain, and except for a class that was in physical education class and students who were out, all the teachers and students were killed, and there was no chance of rescue.
On the ruins of the school hangs a striking banner that was hung by a mother of a victim. He Chuan, who was only 16 years old at the time, was buried here, and his mother hung a banner here in his memory.
Every year on her son's birthday, she re-drapes a new banner. But there is a phrase on the banner that has never changed, and that is "Child, Mom and Dad miss you".
Many cars or vehicles were directly smashed, and some were even embedded in crooked buildings, and not a single intact building could be found in the entire county.
In addition to the heavily tilted buildings, many more buildings were directly devastated, collapsing into ruins.
Now 16 years have passed, but for the old county town of Beichuan, time seems to stand still at that moment. The ruins of the houses were already covered with moss, and the whole city was overgrown with weeds because it had not been inhabited for a long time.
These sloping houses have long been firmly fixed by the local government, and the original appearance of the time has been largely preserved.
There is such a river in Beichuan, which is a tributary of the Tuojiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River. After the earthquake, a severe landslide blocked the river, and the huge flow soon formed a dammed lake, which is the Tangjiashan dammed lake.
At that time, the water level of the dammed lake in Tangjiashan was rising at an alarming rate every day, and the water storage soon reached an incredible 320 million cubic meters. If the water storage capacity of this dammed lake continues to rise at this rate, it is only a matter of time before flooding erupts.
At that time, it will not only be Beichuan County, but the entire Mianyang City will be submerged in floods.
So how did the whole mainland respond after the Wenchuan earthquake at that time, and what did the People's Liberation Army do?
Looking back at the Wenchuan earthquake 16 years ago, the PLA's rescue actions are still moving.
After the earthquake, transportation was cut off, information could not be transmitted to the outside world, and the PLA could only form "death squads" to enter the disaster area, so what was the situation at that time?
On May 12, 2008, just over 80 days before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, the whole country was immersed in joy and anticipation.
However, at 2:28 p.m., the earth suddenly began to shake wildly, and a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Wenchuan County.
People were scurrying around on the shaking earth, houses collapsed in an instant, the earth seemed to be torn open, and strong tremors were felt in many parts of the mainland.
When the earth is calm again, the land of Wenchuan has become a purgatory on earth. The people who escaped kept shouting the names of their relatives in the rubble, and many people were directly crushed under the rubble.
This was the most destructive earthquake that occurred since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the number of people affected was as high as 10 million.
After the earthquake struck, the surviving people and the official troops in the disaster area immediately started to save their lives, and supermarkets became the most important supply points.
At this time, the state was also rapidly organizing rescue work, and the People's Liberation Army in various localities quickly assembled to carry out rescue activities in the disaster area.
However, due to the severity of the situation at the epicenter, all communications were cut off, and it rained after the earthquake, and no one knew what the epicenter was, which was very detrimental to the development of rescue activities.
In the early morning of 13 May, Li Zhenbo, director of the Mainland's Airborne Forces Research Institute, received an urgent order, asking him to immediately organize an airborne contingent to parachute into the disaster-stricken area and carry out rescue work while transmitting information to the outside world.
The airborne location is located in the epicenter of Mao County, after the earthquake Mao County was "isolated from the world", no news came out, becoming a "blind spot" for rescue.
All access to Maoxian was blocked, bridges were destroyed, and there was no flat ground where planes could land, so parachuting became the only way to enter Maoxian.
Li Zhenbo knew that the disaster was an order, so he immediately organized a group of airborne troops and boarded a transport plane bound for Maoxian at noon the next day.
This reconnaissance team consisted of 100 officers and men, and knowing that the task would be arduous, they had written a suicide note before setting off, and were prepared to go and never return.
Because this is the first time that the airborne troops have landed without any meteorological data, they do not even know where they will land.
Maoxian County is located in the mountains and valleys, the terrain is complex, the surface is broken, the airspace is narrow, and it is already in the "difficult area" of parachuting.
Moreover, the weather was very bad that day, and everyone did not know what the situation was in the disaster area, and if the landing site was not chosen correctly, then the airborne troops would either be killed or injured, and the consequences would be very serious.
Soon the plane rose to an altitude of five thousand meters, and many fighters suffered from hypoxia.
But they never showed fear, but were engrossed in observing the situation on the ground, waiting for the order to land.
Soon the plane came to the sky over Maoxian, at this time the altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level was very low, the windshield wipers of the plane were even frozen, and the air outside the plane was as piercing as a knife.
Then Li Zhenbo finally observed an open space suitable for landing, which means that these airborne troops can land at any time.
At this time, Li Zhenbo was 48 years old, exceeding the age limit of 45 years old for the Airborne Forces, but he still devoted himself to the task without hesitation. He then had the fighters check their equipment again and launch a final mobilization.
"Comrades, the time has come for the party and the people to test us! The people in the disaster area are looking forward to us!" Li Zhenbo shouted this sentence in a hoarse voice, and all the airborne troops present were determined to see death as if they were home.
So will the airborne troops be able to land smoothly and the rescue mission will be carried out smoothly?
Looking back at the Wenchuan earthquake 16 years ago, does anyone still remember the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) that put life and death on the line?
Maoxian County was the epicenter of the earthquake, but the situation inside could not be transmitted for a long time. In order to be able to carry out the rescue, the People's Liberation Army can only take huge risks to parachute into the disaster area.
At 11:48, the hatch of the plane opened, and the first batch of airborne troops, including Li Zhenbo, jumped off the plane, and this time a total of seven airborne troops jumped.
Fortunately, although these seven airborne troops encountered a little twists and turns on the way to land, they all successfully landed in the end.
Then the plane circled again to the position it had just had, and the eight airborne troops jumped off the plane again, and then joined the seven in front. In this way, 15 airborne troops successfully landed in Maoxian without any casualties.
After 15 PLA soldiers gathered, they rushed to the disaster area to rescue. Because of the weather, the more than 90 paratroopers on the plane did not continue to jump down and then returned home.
The airborne troops carried satellite phones with them, which spread the real disaster situation in Maoxian County and opened up a "life channel" for the local area.
After arriving at the disaster area, the airborne troops immediately got in touch with the local government, and every half an hour they contacted the outside world, and also made a preliminary count of the local disaster situation and the number of people affected.
At 18 o'clock on the same day, the Chongqing Armed Police Corps successfully entered Mao County and quickly launched rescue work. However, in addition to the airborne troops, 100,000 PLA and armed police rushed to the rescue site as soon as the earthquake occurred and launched a life-and-death rescue.
If you can't use a large machine, you dig by hand just to be able to save a few more people. Volunteers from all over the country even spontaneously went to the disaster area and volunteered to donate blood, and the donation was tens of billions.
A few hours after the earthquake, Premier Wen rushed to Dujiangyan to direct the relief work on the spot, instilling confidence in the military and civilians in the disaster area.
In addition to the rescue work, the dammed lake in Tangjiashan has become a new threat to the local people, and there is a possibility that the embankment may burst at any time. In other words, if there is another torrential rain, then the dammed lake will burst its banks, destroying the city of Mianyang downstream.
In addition, there is a potential landslide above the dammed lake in Tangjiashan, and a single stone that rolls down may cause the dammed lake to burst.
How to reduce the water level of the dammed lake in the shortest possible time has become a top priority, and the PLA has tried all kinds of methods to carry out small-scale flood discharge of the dammed lake, but the speed is very slow.
In order to speed up the flood discharge, the PLA even used artillery to destroy the boulders and floating objects that obstructed the flood discharge, which made the flood discharge faster.
On June 10, the flood discharge rate of Tangjiashan dammed lake reached 1,000 cubic meters per second, and the speed of water surface lifting was also decreasing.
Subsequently, the flood water successfully passed through the city of Mianyang without causing casualties.
Thanks to the continuous efforts of the People's Liberation Army, the disaster situation has been effectively controlled. The military and civilians from all over the country are united, and countless materials and donations have been sent to the disaster areas in a steady stream, providing a strong guarantee for the lives of the people in the disaster areas.
Now 16 years have passed since the Wenchuan earthquake, and the 15 airborne troops who put their lives and deaths aside are still heroes in the hearts of the Chinese people.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) who participated in the Wenchuan earthquake relief are all people's heroes, who have brought hope to the victims and saved one life after another with their own hands, which deserves the respect and love of all of us.
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