"Life detection equipnt from the equipnt warehouse! Demolition tool set! Rescue tripod! Protective lifesaving equipnt! First aid dical kit! Lifting gas..."
"Forget it, don’t bother with the air cushions! They’re too heavy! Everything else, inventory it and place it at the door!"
"Captain! There’s an old gasoline-powered demolition set in the training equipnt room, do we take it?"
"The demolition equipnt, bring all of it!"
Fang Huai did what needed to be saved, and carried what had to be brought, in an effort to keep the essential equipnt loaded onto the plane while retaining as much carrying capacity for personnel as possible.
Near the squadron, an alarm that sounded almost frantic finally began to blare.
"Wu..."
"Vehicle ahead, Guie D32710, pull over! Gui D32710, move aside to let through!"
A full seven vehicles were blaring intermittently, their loudspeakers piercing with urgency, and nearby residents, who had never heard such a strong alarm from the fire brigade, stopped to watch. Heads poked out of so nearby residential buildings as well.
The vehicles zood in.
The lead vehicle, upon seeing Fang Huai, was about to greet him when Fang Huai hurriedly waved him off.
"All vehicles, stop in the big courtyard! Next to the helicopter warehouse!"
The front yard of the squadron remained as it was, but the backyard had now beco known as the big courtyard.
Every piece of equipnt on the playground’s running track, Building Number 2, was already in use, and the whole area of the squadron had expanded threefold. Now, to really get a full view of the Second Squadron, one had to walk past Main Building 3.
The seven vehicles that ca in were all covered in mud, and few of the people in them even saw Fang Huai amidst the overwhelming noise, leaning every which way and using this brief rest to fiercely catch so sleep.
Everyone was exhausted.
But the detachnt still sent them.
The firefighting forces, perhaps lacking in everyday discipline and training compared to frontline units, had one characteristic hard for other troops to grasp.
They were always at war.
Whenever there was an ergency, they were ready to give up rest, not afraid of hardship, death, or fatigue, with battlefield discipline always in effect.
Many people found the firefighting response speed astonishingly fast, but it wasn’t that other units lacked trained readiness; it was because the firefighters were perpetually at war.
Since the upgrade, the Second Squadron had beco "the favorite of thousands," with so much funding and elite personnel invested. The leadership rembered that under their command was a team that could be called firefighter special forces; they were called for major fires, ergency flood responses, and external assistance for landslides, becoming exceedingly handy and used in rapid succession.
The more they received, the more they had to give.
Since the new year, the Second Squadron had to wear their combat uniforms to train, adapting to sudden alarms, and there were a lot of major alerts, to which everyone had grown accustod.
But today’s alarm was so significant that, since Wenchuan, they had not encountered anything like it. Cao Yi, knowing the situation, didn’t even have ti to park; he stopped the vehicle at the door for a mont, swiftly opened the car door, and jumped out.
After closing the car door and seeing Fang Huai, he didn’t greet him but ca over and loudly asked,
"Do you know the situation? Have the equipnt been arranged? Who are you taking?"
"I roughly know. A landslide, a mine, and a village! I’ve had the new recruits check out the equipnt! Regarding the personnel, I’ll let Chen Gong register the equipnt and get on the plane first! Let’s go!" Fang Huai didn’t linger, waving Cao Yi towards the big courtyard.
Yet as they walked, Cao Yi shouted, "This isn’t just any landslide! On the road, we contacted the local detachnt, and the initial estimate is that the collapse is over one and a half million cubic ters! There are at least sixty to seventy people buried underneath! That doesn’t even include those who might have passed by, and so far, they haven’t found a single one!"
Fang Huai paused for a mont.
Sixty to seventy people were within his expectations, as a mine could normally have dozens of people inside and out.
But he hadn’t anticipated such a massive area of collapse—1.5 million cubic ters... If it was all irregular stones that ca crashing down, it could cover ten football fields.
The greater the volu of the collapse, the smaller the hope for life.
A bad premonition spread in his heart.
Fang Huai shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and resud his steps.
"No use in hurrying, has Captain Liu arrived yet?"
Cao Yi checked his watch, "He said a maximum of ten minutes, and he should be arriving soon!"
"Let’s go, get the equipnt loaded!"
...
"Captain Fang, this old cutting machine can’t cut through stone anymore, should we take it?"
"We can’t handle the stone with this! We’ll need the excavator’s breaker! Take it! If it can cut wood and rebar, take it too!"
"Move, move! Bring this generator up first!"
"Wait a minute! I’m loading the rice first!"
"Damn, why are you carrying that? Are you guys going too?"
"You don’t know crap! Captain Fang said, with transit gone, logistics are as crucial as rescue! We have to go to the site and cook for you guys!"
"Oh damn..."
In the spacious big courtyard, the helicopter had already been pulled into the courtyard, the pilot had boarded, and everyone was rapidly loading items onto the aircraft.
People are like springs, their resilience needing to be unearthed. Just ten minutes ago, those soldiers, who were so tired they could fall asleep at a touch, were now vivacious, shouting and calling out.
They were all vigorously showing their energetic spirits.
Because after this period of study, they had beco very familiar with the helicopter’s capabilities. The aircraft had a load limit of 3 tons, and with these odds and ends already taking up more than a ton and a half, the remaining just over one ton, less than 3000 pounds, even if they were willing to squeeze in, at most, only twenty people could go.
Leaving aside the pilots and cadres, that’s just fifteen.
This was their first ti in a flight augntation for an alert! If they didn’t show their worth, they would indeed be left on the ground!
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