That was a building that had collapsed on one side.
Moreover, there was a huge pre-cast slab leaning on the side that hadn’t collapsed.
The place the woman was pointing to was right under the pre-cast slab, in a big pile of rubble.
Looking closer, there were many large stone slabs underneath, beyond the strength of humans to move.
Everyone knew this was going to be difficult to clear and they could only wait for chanized units to co with heavy machinery to dig.
"Your man is definitely not in there, go look elsewhere, maybe he has already gotten out," the Instructor sighed and offered a well-intentioned lie.
Unless it was certain that soone was alive, using cutting machines to slowly process the stone slabs, and then clearing them, would take a team of 10 at least 10 hours. That was wasting the chance of survival for others.
The woman imdiately sat down and wept.
"Don’t lie to , he’s down there, he’s still alive... I even saw his bag, that’s how he always is, keeps his wallet in the car, mobile phone on him, when he leaves the house..."
The woman went on and on about mundane life details and mories that were irrelevant to the rescue, channeling all of her heartache and love for her husband into her incessant babble.
Fang Huai truly couldn’t stand the non-stop prattle, it made him want to cry.
He gritted his teeth.
He picked up Little White and rushed over in two steps, jumping carefully from the roadside into the shanty underneath.
Once stepping onto the rubble, he put Little White down and walked right under the leaning pre-cast slab.
"What are you doing, Fang Huai!"
When Cao Yi saw him, he imdiately tried to call out to him.
But the Instructor held Cao Yi back.
"If it’s ti to go, then go. Here, we are here to save lives."
Cao Yi slowly let go of his hand.
The soldiers behind them, hearing this, all looked in unison at the dangerous building, once again realizing that the routine safety regulations and implentation rules no longer applied here.
All acts of rescuing people, even if dangerous, were being permitted.
"Little White, if you sll soone, bark once; if there is soone but no movent, bark twice."
After saying this, Fang Huai turned to the wailing woman and shouted forcefully with a frown and raised hand, "Quiet!"
The search dog’s judgnt required a relatively quiet environnt.
The woman looked up just in ti to see soone had already entered, and she instantly quieted down.
Little White sniffed around.
After a while, he went straight to the outside of that huge pre-cast slab.
Fang Huai followed beside it, avoiding the enormous pre-cast slab, and everyone let out a sigh of relief.
Little White didn’t venture far before stopping in front of a large pile of rubble on a slope and began to dig.
"Woof! Woof!"
Beneath Little White’s feet, half of a six-story building had collapsed to form the pile of rubble. Although not compressed by large pre-cast slabs, it was still massive, about two or three ters high.
Fang Huai asked in puzzlent, "Is soone there?"
"Woof!"
"No movent? Not even a little bit?"
"Woof! Woof!"
A dog’s hearing is indeed far beyond that of a human’s.
Thinking this, Fang Huai patted the small stone slab where Little White was standing and shouted, "Is there anyone alive down there? If there is, say sothing! Or move a bit!"
After a while, there was still no response from Little White.
"Is there anyone?" Fang Huai asked again for confirmation.
"Woof! Woof!"
Fang Huai turned his head to Chen Gong and said, "Squad Leader Chen, bring over the life detection equipnt!"
"Okay!"
Chen Gong quickly handed over a large box and asked, "Do you know how to use it?"
Fang Huai nodded, took it, and switched on the life detector.
The device now in use was an audio detector, which could pick up audio signals from sound waves and determine any movent below; even the faintest motion could be detected by the acoustical monitor.
Fang Huai turned on the device and cautiously found a gap to lower the detection line. He then started wearing the headphones, watching the monitor closely to see if there was any sign of movent within the pile of stones.
After a mont, Fang Huai shook his head and loudly said, "Little White says there’s soone down there, but there’s no sign of life, and the detector isn’t picking up any sound."
Upon hearing this, the woman just collapsed to the ground.
Master He sighed, "Anshun Brigade, once you’ve handled the bodies outside, co and help her dig!"
Digging up bodies was much easier than rescue. There was no worry about life and injuries, so they could be a bit rougher. A ten-person team could clear this pile of stones in two hours.
That’s the purpose of search dogs and life detection equipnt.
Search dogs can quickly sweep a large area to locate a target zone, while life detectors can listen carefully to determine the strength of life signs, and even identify exact locations of people.
But... there are always inaccuracies.
So, normally, firefighters would confirm repeatedly, but now, with so many buried, they didn’t have that much ti. Everyone had already judged that this person was certainly gone. His re-examination was already the utmost respect for that life.
And those from the Earthquake Rescue Team, seeing Fang Huai use the detector proficiently and with a search dog that seed genuinely effective, were even more excited.
"Let’s go, let’s go, there must be soone alive over there, we’ve already found two children!"
Fang Huai looked again at the pile of stones, sighed inwardly, picked up Little White, and jumped back onto the road in two steps.
...
The police had been a big help after all.
They had called a lengthy line of tricycle drivers, all willing volunteers to assist with the rescue effort.Originally, they could earn around 100 yuan a day pedaling tricycles in Hanwang. Now, they were all voluntarily offering free rides to the firefighters.
Of course, they still needed to pay for gas. Old Teacher He promised that later, when the Firefighting Command post was established, the tricycles could also co to the Command post to fuel up for free.
Three or four people squeezed into a vehicle. A mber of the Earthquake Rescue Team nad Li Ziyang guided them all the way from near to far, pointing out directions.
"This place is called Qinglong Community!"
"Soone said they heard a baby crying inside today. We’ve already arranged for residents to help clean up! But there was an aftershock a mont ago, and so residents were afraid it would collapse the surviving spaces below, so we didn’t let them continue."
You can go look for that family; they know where it is!"
Li Ziyang pointed to a sowhat intact low-rise house and spoke loudly.
A team of ten imdiately got off the vehicle.
"There’s also a volunteer surnad Zhong, who said he heard cries for help near Building 703 in the Dongqi Residential Area! I’ll take you there!"
...
Dongqi Residential Area.
"Zhang Wenfang!"
"Zhang Wenfang, answer ! I won’t hit you, just answer..."
A man was sitting by a flower bed, wiping away tears while shouting into a partially collapsed floor for a na that could either be his wife’s or his daughter’s, his voice already hoarse from shouting.
In post-earthquake Hanwang, it was very easy to strain one’s voice.
"Over here, Building 701! It’s confird! A family mber ca and said his dad is on the fourth floor of Unit One, paralyzed in both legs and unable to move. But as you can see, half the wall has collapsed! The beam is also damaged, so the rescue is very dangerous. Be careful, and make sure to thoroughly observe the stairs when going up!
And also when coming down..."
Li Ziyang was in the middle of speaking.
Hao Chengbin led another team off the vehicle, glanced at the man beside the flower bed overwheld with grief, and interjected, "Right, get moving! Leave two of the tricycles for us! Our dical team still hasn’t gotten here, is there a dical team in town?"
"There is a dical team! Many have co! They arrived last night! Many are from the provincial hospital! If there are injured, find them in the square!" Li Ziyang imdiately replied.
The troop movents were difficult. Most of the orders received were to advance towards the epicenter of the earthquake, but unexpectedly, there was no shortage of dical aid or food. This was sothing Fang Huai hadn’t anticipated.
Hanwang isn’t too far from Chengdu, about a hundred kiloters or so. Because of its good economic status and the presence of Dongqi Auto Factory, one of the top three turbine factories in the country, transportation was relatively smooth. Supplies and dical aid arrived swiftly. In fact, when Fang Huai thought of distributing so food and water to the residents earlier, no one wanted it.
They all said that the only places truly in need of food and water are those that cannot be reached by car.
There are nearby mountain villages, and then there are Xuan’kou, Qingping, and Mao County, the Wei n Township area, where a road from Jiuzhaigou to Chengdu passes through, and where many foreigners often get stranded.
Of course, there is also the epicenter, Yingxiu, Wenchuan.
These are the places most likely to be in desperate need of food and water.
But for now, Fang Huai had no ti to take care of this.
At the mont, the only orders he had been given and tasks he had been assigned were to rescue those trapped in that narrow area of the middle school ruins.
He had to have faith in the power of the organization.
He was but a tiny screw in the towering machine of the state’s rescue forces.
...
PM, 4:48.
Everyone was moving very quickly.
Half an hour after entering Hanwang, Fang Huai arrived at his destination, Hanwang Middle School.
What t his eyes were not just ruins, but a complete heap of industrial waste.
The idea that an earthquake could shake these buildings into a pile of collapsed debris on the ground was almost unbelievable.
The previous buildings at least still had large slabs of prefab, but here, there hardly were any large chunks of concrete.
It likely looked more like the work of an explosion.
But the two buildings in the rear seed to tell the entire story of how a building could turn into waste.
One of the buildings had collapsed on one side, the outer part representing many rooms, all smashed on the ground.
The other building was left with just a fra, teetering on the brink of collapse. From this side of the building, one could see all the scenes behind it; any cent structure was shattered on the ground. If the fra also fell, probably that area too would beco a heap of waste.
So parents, with bleeding hands, were still digging while crying.
Others were sitting nearby, resting, their eyes fixed on the rubble that the Earthquake Rescue Team was clearing.
Not far away, from under a brick, the hand of a child was revealed.
"There’s soone here! Soone’s here!"
A group of parents imdiately rushed forward.
"Is it a purple shirt? Is it purple?" one woman shouted as she ran.
"No," the Rescue Team shook their heads. "There’s a bracelet on the hand with a Buddhist bead! A boy! Does anyone recognize him?"
There was a mont of silence among the parents.
The sheer force that had crushed him, leaving the hand without any covering, almost signified there was no hope for survival.
But suddenly, a woman collapsed on the ground, crying bitterly: "Xiaoxiao! It’s our Xiaoxiao! He was only 20 days away from the college entrance examination!"
As she spoke, she imdiately got up and ran to the Rescue Team, about to kneel down.
"Please, quickly rescue him! I beg you!"
"We will, we will! Step back!"
"How many people are trapped in this school?" Fang Huai, feeling increasingly heavy-hearted, continued to walk inside as he asked.
Li Ziyang shook his head: "All the children of the appropriate age from the town’s enterprise employees and residents, they’re all at the Foreign Language Experint School and this middle school. You can imagine.
Over there are the ones already dug out, yet to be claid. Many were brought out last night."
As he said this, he pointed into the distance.
Fang Huai turned and saw the several yellow bags on the ground, and swallowed hard.
Those who were still unclaid were likely those whose parents were already gone.
"Co on, Little White, from now on, you’ll have to walk on your own." Fang Huai tugged on the leash and hastened towards the ruins.
(Chapter 3 before 12 o’clock)
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