Thunderous rumbling.
One, two, heave-ho.
Ratatat.
Four days had passed.
Last night, news ca from below the mountain: a miner’s family had managed to get through to a miner’s phone underground, but all they heard was coughing before the call dropped, and it couldn’t be reconnected.
This ssage, whether true or a lie concocted by the families afraid that the Command would give up the rescue, was invigorating.
So, to the continuous sounds of blasting, laborer’s chants, and drilling, the mountain ford from the landslide on the gully beca increasingly hollowed out.
Fang Huai felt like he had beco Sakai Tadamatsu from "My Chief and My Regint", carving out holes of various sizes in the mountain, then going in to explore them himself.
Now, it seed that mountain excavation wasn’t easy at all.
The accumulated depth of the earth and stones had reached over 40 ters, and the geological conditions were extrely complex, much tougher than imagined.
The experts, who were initially of no help, gradually took control.
Fang Huai’s knowledge also grew dramatically: apparently, there were so many considerations when digging a trench.
The top had to slope outward to prevent water from flowing in, causing landslides; excess dug-up earth had to be handled in a tily manner to prevent collapse; shoring plans had to be continuously adjusted based on onsite conditions, monitoring control stakes and elevation levels; and construction on the sa vertical plane above and below couldn’t be done at the sa ti...
Too soft a soil quality wouldn’t work either.
A mountain that had just ford a few days ago could hold so much water that it would seep out from the wall from ti to ti.
The construction plan was repeatedly revised, ground was backfilled after being dug out, directions were changed—every geological problem could make Fang Huai anxious and frazzled.
The target was inside the mine, near the only water source, at the "drainage adit".
But luckily, that morning, the Mi-26 had also arrived.
Several excavators from the Hydropower Troops were successively airlifted to the site, and the elites of the Hydropower Troops, who had been digging with picks at stones and earth these past days, filled with pent-up energy, once on the excavators, went ham at the deep foundation pit—digging and hamring fiercely, the clean-up speed was incredibly fast, and the 20-ton drilling rig also arrived, accelerating the construction speed dramatically.
The most exhausted were the technicians.
Every ti they dug deeper, the technician controlling the geological radar had to be lowered along with the radar trolley for another round of detection, which was also everyone’s most anxious mont.
The geological radar could release radio pulses and receive return signals to detect underground pipelines, cave materials, and all sorts of diums.
However, the technology wasn’t very mature, the detection depth was hit-or-miss, a few ters to a maximum of about twenty ters—essentially, the closer it is, the clearer the detection.
Now, it was ti for the results.
This ti, the technician spent more ti than usual below, frowning at the detection monitor.
Everyone held their breath in suspense.
Suddenly, the technician looked up, shook the monitor in hand, an expression of surprise on his face.
"We’ve got sothing! There might be sothing!"
"Hurry, hurry! Pull him up!"
With a call from Fang Huai, the technician’s safety harness suddenly tensed, and with a swoosh, he was lifted off the ground as if on wires.
The technician was terrified.
"Hey, hey, slow down, the equipnt, the equipnt!"
The equipnt too was abruptly lifted into the air.
Once the technician was up, everyone quickly gathered around.
"What’s the situation? What did you find?"
They had been digging for three days! Since yesterday, they had started continuous detection with instrunts, and only this afternoon did they receive the first sign! How could they not be excited?
"Hold on, don’t panic!"
The technician worked the display screen on the device, adjusted for a while, and then handed it to Fang Huai.
"Look at this structure, does it look like the drainage channel on the blueprint?"
Fang Huai stared at the various stock-like K-lines on the instrunt, furrowing his brows.
The technician quickly turned off the lines that described various diums.
With that, the image beca clear.
It looked like a narrow, elongated channel.
Fang Huai nodded: "Yes, it kind of does! Where is it?"
The technician switched through several interface images, hesitatingly said, "8... to 10 ters! If we dig a few ters down, I’ll have another look!"
Fang Huai’s heart swelled with excitent, and he gestured decisively:
"Dig!"
...
The location of the drainage adit was confird once again, right below, at a position connected to the passage. All they needed was to see the reinforced concrete of the mine and break through it to enter.
Two hours later, a mud-covered figure erged from the increasingly narrow passage.
"Commander Fang! There’s water seeping again! It’s also raining above! Tough job! Should we follow the expert’s advice and first fill with clay to seal the leakage point, widen the passage by sloping, and make a human stairway?"
Fang Huai’s eyes flashed, pointing to his wristwatch: "Tough? It’s been a full four days! It’s the fifth day now! How much longer can they survive? No matter how tough, we must proceed! After all the trouble we’ve gone to dig this deep, if we fill it in again, we’d have to dig in another place! Even if we’re quick, it won’t be until tomorrow! We’re short on ti! Hope, do you understand? The sooner we get down there, the longer they can hold on!"
The soldiers around swallowed nervously.
As the expert said, a seeping passage must never be left as is—it had to be backfilled as the chance of collapse was very high.
The current situation was dangerous, potentially collapsing during the continuation of the excavation!
Moreover, the hole which barely accommodated two people was already dug to a six to seven ters depth from the opening, and they should have continued widening and sloping it, otherwise the excavator and the large drilling rig wouldn’t fit, leaving it all to manual digging.
Fang Huai got a bit emotional just then but cald down after thinking it over, aware of the dangers below.
So, he picked up the two-way radio and switched to the Command channel.
Currently, the soldiers of Special Service Squadron 2, after extensive search and rescue training, were mostly commanding the periter rescue teams and were also on this channel.
"Guiyang Special Service Second Squadron."
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