On July 28, 1976, at 3:42:53.8, 12 kilometers underground in Tangshan, the energy equivalent to 400 Hiroshima atomic bombs was released instantly. After just 23 seconds, Tangshan was razed to the ground, hundreds of thousands of people died in their sleep, the Tangshan earthquake, 7.8 on the Richter scale, 242,769 people died, 164,851 people were seriously injured, and more than 7,200 families were all killed. Tens of thousands of families disintegrated and 4,204 children orphaned.
Tangshan after the earthquake
Many people know the tragedy of the Tangshan earthquake, but what we want to say today is that many people do not know. When the earthquake struck, there was a group of people who were closest to danger, and they were the night workers of the Kailuan Coal Mine. How many people are there? Tens of thousands of people, almost no one doubts that these tens of thousands of miners will be the most tragic in this disaster. Kailuan Mineral Bureau is located in Tangshan City, at that time there were 7 mines under its subordinates, Zhao Gezhuang Mine, Tangjiazhuang Mine, Linxi Mine, Lvjiatuo Mine, Fan Gezhuang Mine, Majiagou Mine, Tangshan Mine. The mining area covers an area of more than 670 square kilometers, and most of them are distributed in areas where the earthquake is more severe, and the Kailuan Mining Bureau is one of the few local enterprises that did not stop production during the Cultural Revolution. July 27 was not far from the end of the month, and on this night, more than 10,000 people from the seven mines under the Kailuan Mineral Bureau came down to the mine. When the earthquake occurred, more than 10,000 people were working underground, and the crazy crustal movement made them stand on the edge of the line of life and death in an instant, what kind of situation did they face underground, and could they finally escape this disaster?
Jia Bangyou, a demobilized soldier, participated in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the War of Liberation and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in his early years, and was then the deputy director of the Lujiatuo Mining Revolutionary Committee, equivalent to the current deputy mine director or deputy secretary, and the workers used to call him Lao Jia. When the earthquake struck, Lao Jia was leading more than 1,000 workers to work continuously under the Lujiatuo mine for nearly 7 hours, and according to the plan, Lao Jia and the workers should ascend the well at five o'clock. Usually they only need a few minutes to come up, but at this time, the underground is pitch black, there is nothing but the human voice, and Old Jia knows that something is wrong.
Luo Luchang, the ventilation technician of Zhao Gezhuang Mine, because he was responsible for the ventilation of the entire mine, so he was very familiar with each mine road, and at about 3:30 a.m. on July 28, Lao Luo just came up from the well and went to the bathhouse on the second floor as usual, ready to go home after taking a bath. However, at this time, Lao Luo could not imagine that he himself would be linked to the lives of thousands of people.
Li Yulin, deputy director of the Tangshan Miners' Union, at more than two o'clock in the morning on July 28, Li Yulin returned home from the night shift, Li Yulin was tired and sleepy, and when he returned home, he fell asleep, but he himself could not dream that five hours later, he would appear in Zhongnanhai in Beijing. At 3:42 a.m. on July 28, Li Yulin was awakened by a violent shaking, when he heard the most terrible sound in his life. This sound lasted only a few tens of seconds, but the whole Tangshan collapsed, Li Yulin luckily escaped, after settling his family, he went to the mining area, Li Yulin originally planned to go to the mining area to report the disaster situation in the family area and ask for support from the mine. But as soon as he entered the mining area, he realized that there was no longer any possibility, where was the mining area?
After the earthquake, a mining area was opened
In 1977, the Central News Records Film Studio filmed a documentary "Kailuan Miracle" to record the situation in the Kailuan mining area after the earthquake. The Tangshan Mine has been completely unrecognizable, all the buildings have collapsed, the rails for transporting coal have been bent and deformed, some have even erected more than two meters high, the derricks of the wells transporting workers up and down have been twisted into twists, and the well ropes have also been twisted together. At the time of the earthquake, there were more than 1,600 people underground in the Tangshan mine, but at this time, there was no sound under the wellhead of the black hole cave. Although the ground was quiet, at this time the whole open ground was like a pot, and after the violent shaking, the rumbling noise echoed in the alleyway, the coal seam was filled, and some young workers thought it was a landslide or a gas explosion. But experienced veteran workers conclude that things are by no means that simple. At this time, some people began to clamor that the Soviet Union had dropped the atomic bomb and that the US empire had dropped the atomic bomb.
In those days, after a long period of repeated publicity and education, it was normal to have such a reaction. Just when everyone was panicking, the phones in the various coal mining areas suddenly rang. After the earthquake, the telephone communication lines were damaged to varying degrees, so where did the telephone sound in the coal area come from? It relies on the Magnet Telephone Exchange, which is a battery direct-dial telephone device dedicated to Inoue Ande, similar to military telephones. After the earthquake, the private line of the magnet telephone exchange was not destroyed, so the underground person in charge of each coal mine immediately used it to notify all the workers, the content of the notice was simple and clear, and it must be withdrawn to the nearest alley as soon as possible. The main alley is equivalent to the main road under the well.
The underground part of the mine is more complicated, and if you just say the technical names of each part, whether you understand it or not, I will also say confused. At that time, the person in charge of the well asked the workers to concentrate on the big alley, because the space in the big alley was relatively open, and the air circulation was relatively good, the power supply was interrupted as soon as the earthquake came, all the backup generators were damaged, and without electricity, there was no ventilation under the mine. Over time, in the depths of the winding roadways that stretch for hundreds of meters or even thousands of meters, oxygen will become less and less. The toxic gas will continue to increase, and in the absence of ventilation, oxygen can only last for half an hour, and at most not more than 40 minutes. This means that all the miners under the Kailuan well must retreat to the nearest alley within 40 minutes, otherwise they will suffocate.
After the earthquake, the entire mine area was cut off from electricity, and the lujiatuo mine was pitch black, and the only light source that the miners could count on was the miner's lamp on their heads. There are now 1,006 miners underground at the Lujiatuo Mine, which include hundreds of in-the-well workers and new arrivals who are unfamiliar with the underground situation. There are also dozens of female workers among them. At a depth of several hundred meters or even a thousand meters underground, shafts, inclined shafts, and laneways are dotted with mazes. And worst of all, all the laneways look the same, and with this miner's lamp on their heads alone, even the old workers sometimes get lost. Old Jia was worried at this time, to evacuate these 1,006 workers to the ground in an orderly and safe manner in a short period of time, it was not an easy task, in case of chaos, there was a situation of running and stampeding, the consequences would be unimaginable. What's more, they are also facing a bigger problem, the outlet of the Lujiatuo Mine, the mine channel is different from other mines, so can they safely return to the surface?
When the 1,006 miners of the Lujiatuo Mine were trying to withdraw from the ground, at the Zhao Gezhuang Mine, Luo Lu was often naked with a towel and was groping in the ruins, and to this day he did not understand how he had washed himself from the bathhouse on the second floor to the ground. The ground was full of rubble, Luo Luchang had no direction at all, he wanted to go home first to find a piece of clothing to wear, and his home was in the family area five or six hundred meters away, usually with his eyes closed, he could walk back, but now he couldn't find it. Not far behind Zhao Gezhuang, there are more than 3,000 miners under the well, what happened to these people? Luo Lu often didn't dare to think about it.
Luo Lu was often not a native of Tangshan, and some even thought he was not a Chinese. Because he was a returned overseas Chinese, luo was born in Vietnam in 1924, and at the age of 28, he gave up a stable and privileged banking job and returned from Singapore to serve the motherland. But he could not have imagined that the domestic political situation would change, and soon his situation would become more and more difficult. He was born in Vietnam and worked in Singapore, where he had more than 20 years of experience overseas. In this way, he became a politically problematic person without suspense, and it would be light if he did not become a spy.
Earthquake Site Memorial Park
In the past five years, Luo Luchang was often sent to the coal mining area to work, but the miners under the mine did not care about his problems, and in the underground that did not see the light of day, Luo Luchang gained long-lost trust and satisfaction. He often said that the workers were very kind to me, especially the gas workers who checked back and forth, and came to help when they saw that I was struggling to push the cart, and the workers in the excavation class had a deep affection for me. In this kind of situation, the workers treated him with such sincerity, and the warmth and satisfaction brought to him could not be compared. A few hundred meters away, in the family area, there were all the relatives of Luo Lu who was always in the city. And a few hundred meters underground, there are emotional and spiritual sustenance that supported him in that turbulent era. Is this disaster really going to shock him to nothing?
Luo Luchang finally touched his home, exactly where his original home was, because his house had been razed to the ground. But incredibly, his wife and three children escaped the catastrophe unscathed. It can be imagined that Luo Lu often saw what kind of mood they were in. In such a natural disaster, it was a fortunate thing to be reunited with his relatives, but Luo Luchang made an unusual decision. He could not care less about comforting his terrified family, so he immediately returned to the Zhao Gezhuang Mine to take more than 20 lamps and take the ambulance team down the well to rescue. At every turn they make a mark so that the lost workers can find the route up the well as soon as they see it.
30 minutes after the earthquake, as Luo Luchang headed down the well, Li Yulin had decided to leave the coal mine because he had realized that only Beijing could save Luan and Tangshan. Tangshan is east of Beijing, more than 100 kilometers away from Beijing, how to notify Beijing when all communications are interrupted? When he went to Beijing, Li Yulin did not think much of it, and began to run back barefoot, and when he ran to the west gate of the mine, a red mine ambulance came to him, which was the only car in the Tangshan mine that had not been smashed. Li Yulin did not hesitate to get into the car, and the driver went all the way west to Beijing, and the car drove through the downtown area of Tangshan. There was still a dead silence all they could see along the way. Li Yulin could no longer take care of everything in front of him, and at this time he had only one thought in his mind, and he rushed to Beijing as quickly as possible to request support.
At the same time that Li Yulin and they rushed to Beijing, the underground workers of the Lujiatuo Mine, under the leadership of Jia Bangyou and others, had moved to the -425 Lane, and people were terrified and chaotic. At this time, Old Jia assured everyone that he would definitely bring everyone to the ground safely, and after listening to his words, everyone gradually calmed down.
After the earthquake, the family area of the Kailuan Mine
Ji Meirong was one of these people at that time, when she was still a little girl, she remembered the scene very clearly: after the earthquake, we were the deputy mine director Jia Bangyou said: Comrades who participated in the labor quickly gathered in the -325 lane to wait, everyone do not mess, we all obey the leadership command, we will definitely bring back the ground safely to everyone, I will now contact the wellhead and contact the debugging room.
Although Ji Meirong was only in her 20s, she usually sat in the organ, and only went down the well for the sake of high productivity at the end of the month, a few hours of high-intensity labor, coupled with the shock of the earthquake, soon she was exhausted, she could not walk, and the miners dragged her forward with a pull belt. From the underground 425 to the ground, the vertical distance is only more than 300 meters, but the actual distance through the laneway is more than a dozen miles, and it is necessary to climb two steep slopes of more than a thousand meters, the narrowest part of the roadway is only 4 meters wide, there were constant aftershocks at that time, and it was not easy for more than a thousand people to smoothly walk through the steep slope of more than 2,000 meters. What's worse is that there was no air circulation below, so more than 1,000 miners moved up step by step with difficulty, and the roadway seemed to never end. But the air was getting thinner and thinner, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
At this time, a cool wind suddenly blew in the alleyway, and the people under the well realized that someone had opened the damper, but there was no electricity, how could the damper open automatically? Originally, the people of the ventilation technology department replaced the electric winch with manpower after escaping from danger. It took less than an hour to open all the dampers and restore natural ventilation underground. Many people in Kailuan rushed back to the coal mine after escaping from danger, and almost everyone who had just escaped from death was injured, and there were also relatives in the family who were injured and killed. They can rush to the rescue of the brothers underground at the first time, in addition to the normal human reaction of saving people such as firefighting, there is also a kind of solidarity that is difficult for ordinary people to understand.
Underground miners, like soldiers, often face bloodshed and death. The relationship between the individual and the whole is close and inseparable, and in such a crowd, there is often a kind of lifelong friendship. When the miners in Lujiatuo were trekking hard to the surface, next to the new well of the Fan Gezhuang Mine, a young man was trying to find a way to go underground, his name was Guo Zhenxing, twenty-eight or nine years old, and he was the deputy district chief of the first district of the Mining Construction District of the Fan Gezhuang Mine Engineering Department. When the earthquake occurred, Guo Zhenxing had just come up from the well, and at the moment when his feet had just touched the ground, the earthquake occurred. Guo Zhenxing was thrown into a freezing tank more than two meters deep next to it.
When Guo Zhenxing climbed out, he found that the derrick that had just been transported up to him had become crooked and oblique, it was a newly built shaft, with a diameter of seven or eight meters, 520 meters from the wellhead to the bottom of the well, and at the very bottom of the mine, there were still 27 workers who did not come up. The underground water gushing here is large, and the water on the well wall is fierce, and the workers call it Longtan. The bottom of the mine is only more than 60 square meters, and the amount of water accumulated per hour is more than 50 tons. This means that the water level at the bottom of the well will rise by nearly 1 meter per hour, and there is no other channel here, only with the help of electric winch to get on and off, but now the derrick has been twisted and deformed, and the electric winch has stopped running. This means that the only way out for underground miners has been cut off.
Guo Zhenxing and other people on the ground who had escaped from danger did not give up, they used their hands to stabilize the car, Guo Zhenxing tied up the metal soft ladder and steel rope in the dark and groped down to the depths of Longtan. When Guo Zhenxing finally reached the bottom of the well of more than 500 meters, more than three hours had passed, and the water in the well had risen by two or three meters. 27 miners have moved to a 10-meter-high platform with a well wall to take shelter, guo Zhenxing and 27 workers go up in two steps, and before the 10-meter platform is submerged, they all reach the surface safely.
At the bottom of the Fan Gezhuang mine, Wang Tonghuan and more than 130 other miners were trying to climb up, Wang Tongzhuan and the squad leader Fei Yuchun were both breathless and sweaty, but they continued to run in the gushing water half a foot deep, and suddenly the two shouted out "road signs" almost at the same time. It turned out that there was a huge arrow on the front crossbar wall, which was drawn in chalk, and there were a few words on it to go to the wind well. It was under the guidance of this road sign that these more than 130 miners found the only exit to the surface, how can there be such a road sign underground? This is the earthquake resistance plan made by Kailuan Group, and 7 million yuan has been invested in the Zhao Gezhuang Mine and Tangshan Mine alone to build earthquake prevention buildings and seismic planning facilities. 7 million yuan, is not a small amount today, and in the 70s the per capita monthly income was only a few dozen yuan, this 7 million is an astronomical number, these money are spent in the underground production area and workshop, just used on the blade, to ensure the safety of miners.
Now it seems that in addition to the geological complexity of the earthquake, the underground miners did not suffer the disaster, the above-mentioned documents in the earthquake measures, but also to a large extent helped these miners, saved their lives, and finally let them escape safely, after two or three hours of arduous trek, the workers under the Lujiatuo mine finally reached the only way for them to survive: the wind well. Lujiatuo Mine is a new mine, there is no original inclined shaft, so this is the only way to live, the vertical distance from the ground to the top is more than 70 meters, the head is the rainstorm after the earthquake, and the ground is a constant shaking of the earth. Getting out of danger as soon as possible is human survival instinct, but in the face of this passage that determines life and death, there is no noise or crowding. Old Jia gave an order: Female comrades go first. At this critical juncture of life and death, most of the miners showed their most gentlemanly side, so that the female workers, under the eyes of the men, escorted by their miner's lamps, climbed the iron ladder one by one, and at this time, each step up, they were one point closer to the survival, followed by the new workers, the old workers.
At 9:00 a.m. on July 28, with the joint efforts of Luo Luchang and the workers underground, more than 3,000 workers under the underground of the Zhao Gezhuang Mine were safely released to the surface. Prior to this, at 8:30, all 1,006 underground workers in the Lujiatuo Mine had returned to the surface without any casualties. Before that, Guo Zhenxing and 27 sinkers at the Fan Gezhuang Mine had all been safely lifted to the well. Wang Tongzhuo and more than 1,200 other miners at the Fan Gezhuang Mine have also returned to the surface through wind shafts. In the morning, most of the tens of thousands of miners underground returned to the surface safely.
The hospitals in the mining area all collapsed
At this time, Li Yulin and the driver arrived in Zhongnanhai at about 9 a.m., while Li Yulin was still wearing a vest, large pants and barefoot. Although Zhongnanhai already knew that an earthquake had occurred in Tangshan, they did not know the specific conditions of the disaster area. Li Yulin provided much-needed first-hand information for their arrival. After Li Yulin reported the situation in Tangshan to the central leaders, they realized the tragedy of the disaster, and Li Yulin also stressed that he hoped to transfer the national coal mine rescue team to Tangshan to rescue the underground workers in Kailuan.
After obtaining first-hand information from the disaster area, at 10:03, the then vice premier of the State Council issued an order for disaster relief. Soon, relief teams from all over the country quickly assembled and set off, their targets were All Tangshan, after reporting the disaster situation, Li Yulin and they were so relieved, when they drove back to Tangshan, it was already evening. At this time, the few miners stranded in the underground had also successfully escaped from danger, but these people who had just escaped the threat of death did not have the joy of the rest of their lives, because the Tangshan in front of them was even more terrifying than the dangerous underground.
On the third day after the earthquake, all those who can work automatically return to the mining area to report, some people are still wrapped in bandages on their heads, their hands are wrapped in gauze, some people are injured in their legs and carry wooden sticks, this scene seems really a bit incredible today, encountered such a big disaster, the family did not have themselves and was injured, but immediately rushed back to work, but this scene, is really happening.
Ten days after the disaster, the Majiagou Mine resumed production
On August 11, 1976, the 15th day after the Tangshan earthquake, Luo Luchang took several workers into the Zhao Gezhuang mine to make further investigation and preparations for the resumption of production. At this time, no one still had hope for the well and life, but Luo Luchang had been looking forward to the appearance of a miracle, after going down to the 8 lanes, Luo Luchang saw that the entire wellhead was flooded, I don't know if it was a feeling in his heart or a ghost that made God worse, Luo Lu often let the other team members rest in place, and walked towards the depths of the laneway, and the depth of the laneway was pitch black. Under the illumination of the miner's lamp, the broken columns on both sides of the roadway are curved metal supports, which look as eerie as the entrance to hell.
Just as Luo Luchang was walking alone, one of his legs was suddenly held by someone deadly, and this old man Luo's heart was a little sick, and his scalp was about to explode, but at the same time, there was a hint of surprise in his heart. It is already the 15th day, according to common sense analysis, it is impossible for anyone to be alive, is it a ghost? Luo Lu often recalled: He used all the strength to suckle, and as soon as a few of them came out, they hugged me tightly, as if afraid that I would run again. I looked back at Chen Shuhai, and he said that there were still people, and there were still living people, a total of five people. I was very excited, and I thought that today I would not find that the five of them were still alive, and that in a few days, I would come in and see five corpses. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life that I have not fulfilled my last responsibility.
Lao Luo saved the lives of five people, but they complained bitterly, and the miners who hugged him said: Luo Technician, why did you just come? Luo Luchang was really blaming himself in his heart, why had he not found them all along? This is really a strange side of the rescue scene, the heart of the rescued is not satisfied, and the rescue of the people is sincerely afraid, perhaps this is the class feeling that Lao Luo said. However, no matter what words we use to describe it, it must be a feeling that can be entrusted with life and death.
The five rescued people were trapped in the ground 882 meters above the ground, and the squad leader Chen Shuhai, who was 55 years old at the time, was an experienced old worker who was very familiar with the situation underground, and the workers called him a living map. Two days after the earthquake, the miner's lamps of the five people were all extinguished, and in the mine where he could not see his five fingers, Chen Shuhai was completely based on his memory and feelings, leading everyone to grope out of the collapse area. But Chen Shuhai has asthma, he can't move, the real opening of the life channel is the mining team leader Wang Shuli 27 years old, the deputy leader of the mining group Mao Dongjian 44 years old.
The last five people in the well
In the process of digging upwards, what they longed for most was water, and in the place where the five people were besieged, they were already piled up with the cinder that had collapsed, and there was not a drop of water, but they had not eaten or drunk for two days and two nights. But what they fear most is water, because if they don't leave here as soon as possible, they may drown alive once the groundwater rises. After about a week, they finally opened a 16-meter-long passage, walked out of the palm to the 9 lanes, and then after another four or five days, they moved from 9 lanes to 8 lanes little by little, and finally squeezed into transport trucks to warm each other. Five people have not eaten or drunk for more than ten days, the little calories left on their bodies are being exhausted little by little, they have completely lost their sense of direction, several people are huddled together to rely on each other, and they really can't drink their own excreted urine until they meet Luo Luchang.
Today, it seems that in this natural disaster, the birth of more than 10,000 miners under the Kailuan Mining Bureau is really a miracle. Of course, everyone in the mine has made indispensable efforts to save their own lives and the lives of others. After the last five miners went to the well, the Kailuan Mining Bureau confirmed that the miners killed underground were identified as 7 people, including the Tangshan Mine in the earthquake area, with more than 1,600 underground workers and zero casualties at the time of the earthquake. At the time of the earthquake at the Lujiatuo Mine, there were 1,006 underground workers and zero casualties. At the time of the earthquake in Zhao gezhuang Mine, more than 3,000 underground workers were killed, 2 people were killed, 4 people were killed in Majiagou Mine, and 1 person was killed in Tangjiazhuang Mine.