When it ca ti to calculate weights, the mont had arrived.
"Hey, Captain Fang! I’m only 110 pounds! I can definitely go, right?" Liu Jianfeng approached Fang Huai near the plane’s door, exuding confidence.
At that mont, a man ca over, pushed Liu Jianfeng to the side with his waist, and sent him far away.
"You climb with I! You skinny monkey, the mountain’s full of huge rocks, how many pounds can you move? Captain Fang, I’ll go! I can push stones that weigh two hundred pounds! Plus, they haven’t slept, but I drove last night and got two hours of sleep! I can still work!"
The significantly heavy Chen Zhenghai suddenly refused to give in and started making his case.
But as soon as he said this, everyone in the courtyard widened their eyes.
"Who can’t work? You fatso, you can’t take it the most! You can’t even handle staying up all night without complaining about needing sleep!"
Seeing this, Fang Huai frowned and waved his hand:
"Enough talk! Move it! Whether you go or not isn’t decided by physical strength! Our squadron’s main contribution is in technical support, not physical! There are plenty of people in Chongqing, and they are well-organized! We don’t need you to move rocks!
Those who are called, get into your ergency rescue suits and get on the vehicle with !
Ye Jiahong! He Zhijun! Hao Chengbin! Jiang Yonghui! Tang Tao! Shen Danian! Zhao Jinchen! Wang Peng!....."
Eighteen people were called in a row, and those called imdiately puffed out their chests to respond.
There was basically no need to prepare clothes; they were all wearing them already.
They were the ones who had learned more about ergency skills, most were from multiple sub-teams, and one of them, Tang Tao, was even from the professional team. He had an army background, excellent physical ability, learned firefighting skills as if divinely guided, and in just half a year, he had mastered the equipnt storehouse. In many subjects he had scored above the average.
Now, those who usually had poor test scores wilted, and even Instructor Cao and Instructor Huang weren’t going, so they had nothing to say, only regretting that they hadn’t worked harder in their professional studies.
"Drivers, get back to your barracks and rest for three hours now! After three hours, drive to Chongqing. Everyone remaining, pack the ergency equipnt by module, and load the logistics supplies into the vehicles to follow and support!
Instructor Cao, this might be a long battle! Bring everything that needs to be brought! Arrange the squadron’s business, and once there, if the roads are blocked, everyone will carry the modules on foot! Rember! The journey is dangerous, pay attention to safety!
If by that ti we can make contact, I’ll have the helicopter co get you guys!"
At this, everyone’s faces brightened.
Cao Yi also nodded: "I’ll go prepare now!"
"Alright, board the plane! Wang Peng, go bring Little White over!"
Upon Fang Huai’s command, everyone lined up to board the plane, but Wang Peng stood still, saying:
"Captain, are we bringing the search and rescue dog? Should we notify the Search and Rescue Dog Team?"
"No need! Chongqing has search dogs!"
"Then what’s Little White going for?"
Fang Huai said impatiently: "Tch, can Little White be compared to the others? It’s my brother!"
Little White, not far beneath the training tower, imdiately started barking loudly.
Wang Peng had been with Little White for a year and their relationship was exceptional. Hearing Little White’s barking, he surprisingly turned into a translator:
"He says... you don’t deserve to be his brother."
Fang Huai’s eyes narrowed: "If it’s not going, neither are you!"
Instantly, Wang Peng hesitated no more and dashed toward the training tower like the wind. In a few seconds, Little White’s howling resounded.
The swearing was filthy.
Fang Huai’s lips curled into a smirk, he turned to board the plane, sat down at the co-pilot’s seat, pondering the rescue arrangents while distractedly speaking to the pilot:
"Captain Liu, it’s 4:35 now, can we make it by 7 o’clock?"
Captain Liu straightforwardly replied: "As per tower instructions, no later than 6:30 am."
Fang Huai looked up in surprise: "430 kiloters, in less than two hours?"
Captain Liu laughed: "That’s the highway distance. This is an airplane, anything within 600 kiloters is considered a short-haul mission."
Fang Huai slapped his forehead, ca to his senses, and smilingly gazed ahead at the broad view.
"Right, an airplane... that’s really great."
...
Pm, 6:22.
The mountain collapsed along with the houses, creating a typical scene of a rural village in the Southwest.
A hundred-ter-tall mountain slumped as if cleaved by an axe, brutally cut in half, exposing a shocking yellow-brown scar, starkly contrasting with the green mountaintop covered in vegetation.
Giant boulders could be seen from a great distance.
The largest of the fallen rocks, perhaps twenty ters high, stood in a precarious and intimidating position, looking quite frightening.
Below the mountain, a rural road just three or four ters wide was buried under a mass of boulders and earth for hundreds of ters, and although a dozen cars were turning around one by one to retreat, about hundreds of people were climbing up and walking on this stone-paved path, hoping to reach the other side of the valley.
This wasn’t a pebble path, but a road of boulders where stepping on one several ters high with no foundation could easily result in tumbling onto another stone—it was extrely dangerous.
But even if they managed to crawl across, there was no clear passage on the other side. The stones were irregularly distributed, and the quieter area that could be reached was a steep mountainside with a 40-degree slope.
The helicopter approached from afar, its rumbling sound echoing across the mountain wilderness.
The downpour had just subsided not long ago, and evening was approaching, so it was getting dark. However, the aircraft was still quite conspicuous.
"Look! The helicopter from the city is here!"
Many people waved at the sky upon noticing the arrival of the helicopter.
A powerful searchlight turned on, illuminating a group of people on the stony beach as a loudspeaker voice ca from above.
"The path ahead is dangerous! Return the way you ca imdiately!"
Despite the ssage being repeated three tis, few people on the rocks turned back. So looked up and waved at the sky, continuing to walk as if to say, you keep shouting, and I’ll keep going.
The firefighters on the plane were all cursing under their breath.
"What are they doing? Do they have a death wish?!"
"This is ridiculous! They’re just making work for us! If another collapse happens, we’ll have to rescue them too!"
Fang Huai too felt sowhat overwheld as he repeatedly shouted into the loudspeaker.
Only Captain Liu, the pilot, seed calm as he said,
"No use shouting, it won’t help. Many of these miners from rural areas are the main labor force from nearby, supporting families, vital to a family, an entire village. They are definitely going to rescue others."
Then, after scanning the surroundings, he pointed to a flatter area of yellow earth not far from the broken mountain and said,
"We can only drop you off there, or a bit further back where there seems to be a lake."
Fang Huai put down the loudspeaker and looked intently before nodding, "That’s a barrier lake ford by the collapse! There are people waving flags over there, head that way!"
Captain Liu looked ahead in surprise and after closely observing, he indeed noticed a person as small as a sesa seed in the distance waving a flag. He comnted in astonishnt,
"You can see that from here? You’re wasted not flying planes!"
Fang Huai smiled, "Next year I’ll be your co-pilot!"
...
The helicopter hovered above the space next to the barrier lake.
Despite there being a relatively flat open space, it was littered with rubble. High-speed blades would whip up stone debris and potentially damage the rotors, so they dared only to hover four or five ters high.
Fortunately, there were many people below. Fang Huai used his loudspeaker to ask for support from those below and after receiving a response from the flag bearer, he directed his team to lower down large equipnt such as generators, petrol drums, demolition toolkits, multifunctional stretchers, and the like. Smaller items were carried on their backs as they rappelled down following the people below.
Fang Huai gave Captain Liu a few instructions before being the last one to go down.
Upon reaching the ground, the soldiers of the Second Squadron had already piled up the equipnt, including Ye Jiahong, and everyone was neatly lined up in formation.
The scattered crowd of around a hundred people, stunned by the well-disciplined team and the hovering helicopter, kept silent until Fang Huai descended, at which point they started to take a good look at the surrounding crowd and said,
"You’re from the governnt, right? May I ask, who is the commander here?"
Soone imdiately called out, "This is Mayor Ma of our Iron Mine Village!"
A slightly overweight middle-aged man in a suit also raised his hand and ca over, saying, "Yes, here! I’m here! Comrade, are you from the city?"
"We are reinforcents! Have your leaders arrived yet? Have you started the rescue operation?" Fang Huai asked with a furrowed brow.
Mayor Ma looked distressed and patted his leg, "The road is blocked! Our village governnt is behind, we had to take a detour to get here! The county mayor and others are probably blocked outside too! It’s quite far from the city! After hearing the news, we organized people to run through the mountain roads for two hours to get here! Look at this, these gigantic rocks, with just a few of us, how can we rescue anyone?"
Fang Huai looked around at the hundred or so people anxiously waiting. He sighed internally, but then he spoke with a serious tone,
"Mayor Ma, we are from the Guizhou Fire Brigade. I am temporarily taking command here. Do you have any objections?"
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