Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1787
On July 29, Li Yinsu, who lives in Mentougou, received a notice about flood warning. She wasn’t unprepared, but in hindsight those preparations didn’t make sense.
The notification came from a village in Mentougou where her store warehouse is located, asking people to evacuate. She asked the staff to cover the more than 50 sets of assembled cabinets in the warehouse with tarpaulins.
The Shuiyuzui village where she lives is on the mountainside of Miaofeng Mountain, which is the last basin where the Yongding River flows from the mountains to the plain. Li Yinsu felt that her home was in a high place in the village, and there were two large drainage holes on the left and right sides of the house door, so she and her family decided to stay at home.
Two days later, her cargo was all destroyed, the entire warehouse was submerged in water, and the tarps became a joke. She, her family and an adopted puppy climbed onto the roof to call for help, and the water rushed in front of her eyes.
Li Yinsu has been doing business in Mentougou for more than ten years, and experienced the “7.21” rainstorm in Beijing in 2012. She lived in Mentougou City at that time, and the accumulated water on the slopes was like a small river, that’s all. But she didn’t notice the news that Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other places continued to be hit by heavy rainfall, and seven red rainstorm warnings would be issued within three days from the 29th.
After the flood, in front of the interviewee Li Yinsu’s house.
After listening to the village broadcast on the evening of July 30, Wang Yongshun moved his family’s SUV to the high ground in the village—this was all his preparations.
Wang Yongshun has lived in Beicheying Village, Fangshan District since he was born. The village is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and his house is in the lower part of the remaining side, which is also the core area of the village.
Speaking of this village, the first thing Wang Yongshun thinks of is the lack of drinking water, which “can’t be solved for generations.” Another villager in the same village said that there is an old ditch in the village, which has been dry for more than 30 years as he can remember, and has been filled in for residential use in recent years.
“7.21” was once the biggest rain in Wang Yongshun’s memory, “77 cars were destroyed in the village”. There was some water in his house at that time. Another villager recalled that after “7.21”, the villagers cleared away the ruins of the old houses that were washed away, and built two-story buildings one after another. They discussed: “It is said that ‘7.21’ happens once in a hundred years, we will never meet again in this life, right?”
Wang Yongshun walked on the ground when he went out, but the way home was climbing. He found a way out from the mountain, stuck to the walls of other people’s houses, and walked forward with his hands hooked on the window sills. At last he intercepted a rushing ladder, climbed up to the roof, and finally reached home. This road is only 150 meters, usually 5 minutes, on July 31, he climbed for half an hour.
Also on July 30, at around 10:00 am, the train Zhao Kang was on had passed Huailai County, Zhangjiakou City, on the upper reaches of the Yongding River, and entered Mentougou District, Beijing. Zhao Kang received a notification text message about Huailai County in the car, warning that “local torrent disasters are more likely to occur locally”, but he didn’t care. It took him more than 50 hours to find the signal. Before that, he walked over suspended railways, crawled through swamps, and walked through collapsed tunnels.
That day, the train was delayed again and again. At 0 o’clock this day, he was thankful that the bus was late, and he hurried to catch the bus with the extra 5 minutes of stopping.
He returned to Beijing from a concert in Hohhot and listened to Xu Wei’s song. Before the last song was over, he ran out and went to the wrong station. During the 20 minutes before he set off again to Hohhot Station, he hesitated whether to change it to the next day.
In the end, he decided to go home as soon as possible, with his wife and 5-year-old child at home, “must catch the K396 train”.
At 7:20 am on July 31, Wang Yongshun received a notice from the company and went to work as usual. He moved the SUV off the high ground again. Half an hour later, the company told me not to go to work. When he wanted to move the car back to the high ground, the road started to collect water.
Seeing that the water has covered the tires. He hesitated to move the car, but finally did. More than 20 minutes later, the water rose to Wang Yongshun’s chest. He abandoned the car to escape, but was hit by a wave and fell into the water as soon as he came out.
Bad news one after another, “the water is in sight”
Although the sky was clear, Wang Xiaohui began to prepare outdoor rescue equipment after seeing the news of typhoon “Du Su Rui”. He used to be the captain of the rescue team and participated in the “7.21” heavy rain in Beijing and flood rescue in Hebei, Hunan and other places. He knew that he should be prepared.
Earlier, on July 28, when outdoor enthusiast Yang Liu climbed Tianmen Mountain in Tanzhe Temple in Beijing, he found that the soil became loose, water droplets gushed out from the surface of the stone, and there were sporadic falling rocks. She judged, “This mountain may have mudslides after a few rains.”
She was born and raised in Mentougou City near the mountain. The biggest rain in her memory was nearly 30 years ago when the water from the mountain flowed onto the road in front of her door. She was five or six years old and the water reached her knees.
This time she felt different from usual. After several rains in late July, “the mountain has been saturated with water.” She went down the mountain in fear, and posted pictures and texts on social networks to warn others, “Coordinate Beijing, don’t go into the mountain now! Don’t climb the mountain!”
On July 31, at around 6 am, Yao Wanyun from Dingjiatan Village in Mentougou was going to work by bus. She passed a bridge over the Yongding River and saw that the water was about to overflow the bridge. A few hours later, a resident of Mentougou City drove and saw mud-colored water rushing down from a high place on the road. She instinctively turned around and returned to Shijingshan District. It was also a few hours later that Yao Wanyun, who had arrived at the company’s workplace, saw her village being swept away by the flood in the mobile phone video, and she lost contact with her mother.
At 9 o’clock, water began to accumulate on roads in Fangshan District. On the relatively high windward street, the water flooded the calves of adults. A woman in her 30s couldn’t stand upright, she was rushed out five or six meters by the rapids at an angle, and called for help all the way, “Help me”. Li Zhiwei gave her a hand.
Li Zhiwei is a veteran with flood control experience. He jumped out of the rescue vehicle and grabbed her, almost being knocked down with him. The colleague in the car shouted to the lady: “Grab the car! Grab the car!” The man was pulled up.
Almost at the same time, Wang Yongshun moved his SUV. He sat in the car and tried to start it. He looked down and found that the gas pedal was no longer visible. Soon, the water flooded his calf. He got out of the car quickly, and when he came out, the water had already flooded his chest. He was overwhelmed by a torrent and grabbed his SUV’s driver’s door handle and mirror to pull himself out of the water.
If you abandon the car a few minutes later, the car will be automatically locked.
At 10 o’clock on the 31st, train K396 was powered off. At this point the train has been stranded in Mentougou for nearly 24 hours. Zhao Kang turned on the airplane mode of his mobile phone, trying to save some battery. Then the mobile phone signal in the car was cut off. Before that, Zhao Kang looked at the map on his mobile phone and knew that he was in Luopoling, Mentougou.
Twenty minutes later, Li Yinsu, who lives halfway up Miaofeng Mountain, felt something was wrong. She came out to use the toilet and found that the road outside the yard was completely covered by water. Next to the house, two drainage holes built along the mountain wall poured a lot of rainwater.
In the next 40 minutes, Li Yinsu heard bad news one after another. The first one came from a neighbor, saying that the drain hole on the right was probably blocked by a wrecked car washed over by the water. In the second one she witnessed, the drainage hole on the other side collapsed, and she screamed and climbed onto the roof of her house with the puppy on her back.
On the roof, she looked at the railway in front of her and saw the villagers running, and they shouted for her to call the police. Ten minutes later, the third bad news came. The railway collapsed in front of her eyes, and a big hole was opened.
Behind her house is a straight mountain wall, and there is no retreat. She began to tremble, “The water is in sight.”
A torrent burst through her yard door in seconds, pouring in oil drums, other people’s cupboards, beams and driftwood.
The mountain road leading to Li Yinsu’s house.
The area near the mountain in Mentougou was the hardest hit by the rainstorm. In Nanxinfang Village, a woman in her 30s watched as the road at the entrance of the village collapsed in half, and the black muddy water was rushing. She met a woman of the same age at the door of her house, her shoes were washed away, and she fled to the village barefoot. She took off her shoes and handed them over, and the woman burst into tears.
A worker at the construction site of the new high-speed project on National Highway 109 on Miaofeng Mountain took a video of staggering down the mountain with his fellow workers, with the torrent at their feet. His video accompanying text: “The road collapsed, the Internet was cut off, the electricity was gone, the dormitory and the kitchen were gone, but luckily everyone is fine.”
Yao Wanyun, who left Dingjiatan by bus early in the morning to go to work, was continuously scrolling through pictures and videos at her work station. She saw the torrent rushing down many wooden piles, car bumpers and the roofs of some houses. The archway in Dingjiatan Village was so flooded that almost only the plaque with the name of the village on the beam remained. The water of the Yongding River gushed out of the river, covering Yao Wanyun’s village. She continued to anxiously call her missing mother.
According to the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, from 20:00 on July 29 to 07:00 on August 2, the rainfall in Beijing significantly exceeded that of “July 21” in 2012. This rain became the heaviest in Beijing’s 140-year history.
Wang Yongshun, who had abandoned his car, was fleeing from the west of Beicheying Village to the higher east. Because the scene in front of him was too surprising, he stopped running and stood in the middle of a bridge. “I seem to see the Hukou Waterfall. The gate-facing houses on both sides are like embankments.”
“My home is gone,” he said.
Put the puppy on your back and climb up the roof
When other people’s oil drums, cupboards, beams, and floating sticks rushed into his yard, Li Yinsu’s mind went blank, only fear remained.
She put a change of clothes and put the two-month-old puppy “Dairy Cow” in a backpack, put on a pair of yellow slippers, and held an umbrella, and climbed to the roof of the backyard with her family. A layer of corrugated plastic didn’t strike her as reliable.
The neighbor’s house is on a higher ground, next to it is the only tunnel on the mountainside that can leave the village. Above the tunnel is the railway, which is usually blocked by barbed wire. But now, the tunnel has collapsed, the rails have flooded, the barbed wire has fallen, and water cascades from the top of the tunnel.
Li Yinsu retreated to the roof of his home. She made a video calling for help. “Whoever comes to save us, we also want to live.”
The family of 8 stood on the roof like this for 40 to 50 minutes, with the tip of the umbrella pointing to the tip of the umbrella. No one spoke, only the sound of running water and rain.
Perhaps the collapsed tunnel diverted part of the water flow, and the water in the yard began to recede. She and her family set out to build a bridge. The beams and wooden piles washed by the water were built little by little to form a bridge leading to the intact railway track on the other side. The puppy “Cow” has been silent in her backpack all the time.
Along the railroad tracks, Li Yinsu and his family walked towards the city. After walking 1 kilometer, the family arrived at Xiehejian Village at around four o’clock in the afternoon. A villager with a fruit stand took them in for one night.
After 6 o’clock in the evening, the sky was gray, and the sound of rushing water kept echoing in the village. Li Yinsu, still terrified, went outside the house to find an escape route. Standing on the high ground, she suddenly saw a train carrying dozens of people in military uniforms on the platform halfway up the mountain below.
Form a team, survive in the wilderness
At noon on the 31st, Zhao Kang and other passengers on the K396 were transferred to the Luopoling community, but there was still no signal.
Supplies continue to come in but are still tense. During the more than 24 hours when the train was stranded, the passengers gave priority to letting the elderly and children line up to receive meals. At one point, there was only rice and porridge left in the car, and the children were allowed to eat first. In the community, people still follow this order.
“I feel sorry for these children.” Zhao Kang said, “There are still babies in the car.” Zhao Kang is 31 years old, and a young man in his early twenties who sleeps on the lower berth is also a child in his opinion. Zhao Kang saw that he went to queue three times but failed to get his meal, so he went to find the flight attendant in the middle of the night to ask the next meal time for him, and took him to get rice and pickles.
There is no electricity in the community, which makes Zhao Kang feel anxious. On two occasions, his mobile phone had only 20% power left, so he had to borrow a power bank from other passengers to charge it for a while, and he borrowed it both times. There is also a Jiangxi boy who used his own mobile phone to reverse charge Zhao Kang’s mobile phone for two hours. Zhao Kang showed him the cached map when the signal was still available.
On the evening of the 31st, the children slept in the hall and fourth floor of the community resettlement site. Zhao Kang borrowed a few newspapers and lay down in the corridor to study the map. He decided to keep going, walked to the town below, looked for food and a place with a signal, and reported to his family that he was safe.
At 5 a.m. on August 1, the floodwater gradually receded. He and a dozen others started marching along the railroad. Villages along the way were severely damaged, and power and water were cut off in large areas. Four hours later, Zhao Kang and his party walked to Seshufen Village, and finally saw an open canteen.
Zhao Kang stood at the door and said to a villager, “We have been trapped for three days due to the collapse of the railroad track. Can I borrow some cash?” At this time, a middle-aged man passed by and saw that Zhao Kang was covered in dirt and mud, and took him to his watch. Brother Bai’s house settled down.
Zhao Kang filmed on the way down the mountain. Images provided by interviewees.
Seshufen Village also had no water supply. The two older brothers took out buckets of rainwater and asked Zhao Kang and his party to wash away the stones from their feet and wash the wounds cut by vegetation. Their mother used the drinking water reserved in advance to cook noodles for these dozen people, put ham and chicken, and made stewed noodles with beans.
Most of the dozen or so people stayed here. The village arranged for them to live in the gym, cleared out the ping-pong table, and laid out moisture-proof mats for them to sleep on.
Zhao Kang decided to continue walking. Before leaving, the eldest brother who took them in gave him 300 yuan, seeing that they were all children, they hugged each other and cried. He and the other three continued down the mountain on the railroad tracks.
“There is hope when you go out, and there is everything under the mountain”
On July 31st, it started to rain. Wang Xiaohui, captain of the rescue team and member of the off-road vehicle club, felt uneasy looking at the rain from the window, “The rainfall is average, but it keeps falling.”
At around 11:00 noon, his mobile phone received the first call for help. A villager from Caotianshui Village said that the roads in the village have been washed away, the houses have collapsed, and the elderly and children are trapped. Immediately afterwards, the second and third emergency calls came in.
Wang Xiaohui immediately contacted his off-road vehicle club, hoping that all the riders would come to the village for rescue, but the premise is that the off-road vehicle must have off-road tires (AT tires), a winch, and rescue equipment. He found Zhang Ke, the head of the Wild Kids Off-Road Bike Club, and Zhang Ke finally assembled 19 high-power off-road vehicles.
At around 12 o’clock, 19 vehicles and more than 20 people followed Wang Xiaohui into the mountain for rescue.
The off-road team drove for more than an hour in the rain. The rain kept hitting the windshield, and the car glass was always blurred. On the road leading to Meadow Water Village, falling rocks, big trees, and washed-out embankments kept appearing. The closer to the village, the bigger and muddier the water on the road.
When driving to Fengshihuan Road, the muddy water kicked up by the off-road vehicle was already higher than the car. Further forward, a blue road sign was scraped down and inserted horizontally in the middle of the road.
Communication has been cut off. The convoy picked up a young woman on the side of the road. She had just come out of Meadowshui Village to ask for help. Her child and the elderly were trapped in the village. When the car was 3 or 4 kilometers away from Caodianshui Village, the road was also broken. The asphalt road was hollowed out by the flood and was in danger of subsidence.
On July 31, at the entrance of Meadowshui Village. Images provided by interviewees.
Wang Xiaohui and his party walked into the village. Soon, firefighters also arrived, and they carried out the rescue together with the convoy.
Wang Xiaohui walked about two or three kilometers and saw the village. Although he had participated in several mudslides and flash flood rescues before, he was still taken aback by the sight in front of him. Half of the village was destroyed. Toys, air conditioners, cabinet machines, and mattresses floated in the water. At a glance, there are more than 10 cars destroyed by the water, and some mudslides have been buried to the height of the eaves.
Wang Xiaohui and the firefighters went door to door looking for people. When they found the village committee, they found more than 10 people. In a small two-story building on a higher ground, more than 20 people were found, most of them were elderly people and children. The youngest child was only one year old, and there were also several elderly blind and disabled people.
To his surprise, the villagers were unwilling to leave. Some people say they can’t leave, they are too old. Some people say that if you go out, you are dead, and you are also dead here. Wang Xiaohui and the rescuers first asked those who were willing to leave, and then asked them to persuade those who did not want to leave. People encouraged each other, saying “there is hope when you go out, and there is everything under the mountain”.
On the second floor of a small building, Wang Xiaohui found the wounded. A wall of the building collapsed and a man was crushed and injured in his chest and abdomen. But he didn’t want to leave because his father was still inside, and his father couldn’t see the road clearly, so he didn’t plan to leave. The old man was guarding another blind man of about the same age.
The villagers are always unwilling to leave anyone behind, and most of them have limited mobility. Rescuers have to rely on hugging, supporting, carrying, and lifting to transport the villagers. Wang Xiaohui and another teammate took turns carrying an old man in his 80s for a three-kilometer walk.
Zhang Ke got into the car in a hurry that day wearing the sandals and slippers of his work unit. He couldn’t walk on mountain roads, so he stayed at the convoy gathering place near the Wanfushan archway to be in charge of dispatching. People who came out of the village told him about the flood, “When it reached the neck, I ran away without any money.”
All six members of a family were rescued. However, the seats on the off-road vehicle are limited, so Zhang Ke wants to send the elderly, children and women at home to the resettlement site first. The woman of that family disagreed. The family turned from the next village to Meadowshui Village to wait for rescue. She was still in shock, and she was unwilling to be separated from her husband.
In the end, she voluntarily sat in the trunk, let her husband get into the car, and the family left together.
The father named the children who came across the water Dinghai and Shenzhen
At around 9:00 am on July 31, the ambulance driver Jin Yong received a transfer notice for a pair of premature twins born at 33 weeks. At around 11 am, he drove to Mentougou District Hospital. Waiting for the baby to be born and held down.
Within 10 minutes of parking, the Yongding River flooded into the hospital parking lot. Water covered the tires and filled the ambulance cab, flooding the back compartment. A car was rushed in front of Jin Yong’s ambulance, and his car stalled. He contacted the company to ask for a new ambulance.
There was a power outage in the hospital, and the standby power supply was activated. The cesarean section could not be performed in the obstetrics and gynecology operating room, so it had to be replaced by a normal delivery. effort.
At around 1:00 p.m., a new ambulance arrived, but the driver said that the tires had been flooded by the water on the way past a bridge, and the return trip was too risky. “In case you lie down in the bridge, two newborns.”
In the end, the doctor discussed with several ambulance drivers and decided to use the Unimog off-road ambulance to send the newborn across the bottom of the wading bridge, and then send the newborn to the urban hospital by the new ambulance. The Unimog is an all-terrain off-road medical ambulance, capable of wading 1.2 meters of water, climbing a slope of 100%, and driving on an incline of 38 degrees in extreme environments.
At around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the children took oxygen quietly in the incubator, and arrived at Bayi Children’s Hospital safely, where they met their father. The father named the sleeping child Dinghai and Shenzhen.
In Meadowshui Village, another father and son were separated. Near a building next to a mountain, the three of Wang Xiaohui met a 15-year-old boy. He pointed to a room where his father was still trapped.
Three people including Wang Xiaohui and Liu Xin went to the rescue with a shovel. When crossing a bridge filled with mud and sand, the mud mixed with water made it sticky and soft. Liu Xin stepped on it, and the mud buried her thighs. The three stuck their shovels into the mud as crutches.
The mud in that house was almost as high as the eaves. The roof is like a big funnel, and the shovel digs it down faster than it can be filled with sand. Based on experience, Wang Xiaohui judged that even on a sunny day, without large equipment, three people and three shovels would not be able to save a person. The rain also started to fall harder and harder, Wang Xiaohui had no choice but to tell the boy that he had to evacuate.
“If we don’t withdraw, maybe the second landslide or flash flood will come, and we will be inside.”
Wang Xiaohui said it again, and the boy silently followed the three of them out of the house that was filled with sand.
Before dark that day, the convoy and firefighters transferred more than 50 villagers from Meadowshui Village. When Wang Xiaohui returned home, his legs were covered with wounds and his feet were soaked. He fell asleep exhausted.
Almost home, the puppy in the backpack sticks out its head
At 3 o’clock in the morning on August 1, Li Yinsu, who was staying at a villager’s house in Xiehejian Village, woke up from a nightmare. She dreamed that her house had collapsed. At five o’clock in the morning, she and her aunt set off back to Shuiyuzui Village. They want to go home and look at the house.
On the way, she saw several pigeons were so rained that they could not fly and died by the side of the road. A goose washed down from nowhere by the water was standing on the rubbish dump.
The house of Li Yinsu’s family did not collapse, leaving water marks more than one meter high on the gray wall. She met three elderly people chatting in front of a collapsed house. They said that yesterday they saw an old man fall when he went out and was submerged before getting up. The few families on the high ground were not damaged, and they took in many elderly people.
It started to rain again, Li Yinsu decided to return to Xiehejian Village, and went to the shops in the city with his family for a few nights. The family of 8 people left in two groups. The younger ones explored the road first, and Li Yinsu and his uncles and aunts set off again.
Li Yinsu took the escape route again.
From Xiehejian Village to the city, there is only one railway left. Walking on the railway, Li Yinsu’s fear still lingers. Some stones that fell from the mountain were lying in the middle of the railway. The rails were shining in the rain, and the grooves between the sleepers were completely filled with water. When passing through some tunnels, the water from the stone wall dripped on the body.
There are only 20 centimeters of narrow roads left for some sections of the road, and the surging Yongding River is just below the mountain not far from the railway tracks. The original riverside roads and parks were all submerged.
On the railway tracks, Li Yinsu also met a person who went back to the mountain with her. The person had left the day before and slept in an unwashed public toilet halfway along the railway. When Li Yinsu met him, he was going back to the mountains to find his missing family members.
Li Yinsu is the youngest of the four people in the group. Uncles and aunts told her, don’t be afraid, as long as you are alive. So she also said to herself, just live. She felt less frightened than she had been standing on the roof.
It took almost an hour for the four of them to walk two kilometers of railway. When her feet stepped on the muddy road, Li Yinsu finally felt relieved.
Puppy “Cow”.
The puppy “Cow” also stuck out its head from the schoolbag at that moment. It was an abandoned puppy who was adopted by Li Yinsu when it was one month old. It was named Dairy Cow because of the distinct black and white patterns on its body. Before the heavy rain, the “cow” suffered from indigestion and grunted whenever she excreted. However, during the two days of escaping, the “cow” was surprisingly quiet, and it only started whining when it was almost at the end of the city.
Zhao Kang is safe, Wang Chunming is safe, the children are safe, and the last batch of K396 stranded passengers are safe
Zhao Kang, a passenger of K396, had a strong drive to walk down the mountain. “I know my wife, she must be looking for me like crazy.” He misses his wife, the old man and the 5-year-old child at home, and he only has one thought in his mind, “Go home early.”
He led a dozen people and groped for the way with the cached map. The road was blocked by the flood, and after walking for a while, they had to turn back to the railway that snaked down the side of the mountain and walk on sections of sleepers that were submerged in water. Zhao Kang arranged for two women in the team to follow him closely, followed by a man. When a woman fell into the water, he and the men behind pulled her out.
The most thrilling section is the five or six-meter-long railway track. The mud underneath has been washed away. The railway track is like a flat ladder lying across the mountain. More than a dozen people came over, only one Baoding boy was unable to move forward due to fear of heights. “Don’t look at the bottom, look at the front.” Zhao Kang said to him. The boy worked up his courage and walked over.
Some places were covered by the silt of the collapsed vegetation on the mountain to form swamps, and they crawled over on their stomachs.
“You have to walk even if you’re crawling,” Zhao Kang said. Even when crawling forward on his stomach and grabbing the ground, Zhao Kang did not want to stop, “We know that the difficult road is over.”
In Seshufen Village, he also wanted to stop for a while, waiting for rescue and signal restoration. But a man from Shanxi who was the same age as him said: “When my brother disappeared, my father came to Beijing to look for him. I don’t think he will come to Beijing next time to look for me.”
Zhao Kang, the Shanxi native, and the other two teamed up to continue along the railway, guided by rescue workers along the way. There are several tunnels that are dark inside and may collapse at any time. Zhao Kang and the Shanxi people turned on the flashlights to illuminate the other two companions whose mobile phones were completely dead.
On the railway, he met Wang Chunming, a young man who was traveling by car in Mentougou. Wang Chunming was at a loss. He came for a tour, but his car was swept away. He didn’t dare to go with Zhao Kang, and asked Zhao Kang to call his family when he had a signal.
After trekking for nearly 10 hours after departure, Zhao Kang walked out of the penultimate tunnel along the way, and saw someone in front of him who seemed to be on the phone. He quickly took out his cell phone.
Zhao Kang’s first phone call was to his wife. The second call was to Wang Chunming’s family members whom he met on the road. He told the old man on the other end of the phone: Wang Chunming is safe.
At this time, Zhao Kang glanced at the phone, and there was still 6% of the battery remaining, and it had been 62 hours since he boarded the train.
In the early morning of August 2, the signal at the place where most of the passengers of K396 were placed was urgently repaired. After losing contact for 41 hours, the passengers reported safety to their families one after another, and were evacuated from the disaster area under the escort of rescue teams.
The passengers of K396 descended, and the rescue team went up the mountain.
The children who came to Beijing to participate in the research group from Wuhai, the starting point, walked along the railway track under the care of the People’s Liberation Army. Several parents drove 10 hours to the railway, climbed the track, and picked up their children.
According to the China Railway Department, on the morning of August 2, the first batch of 328 passengers who were transferred safely arrived at the final station, Beijing Fengtai Station. According to Xinhua News Agency, in the early morning of August 3, the last batch of stranded passengers of K396 at Anjiazhuang Station and Luopoling Station also arrived smoothly.
A blue scarf was fished out, a mud dog was pulled out, the white steamed bun fell to the ground, and the daughter was crushed by the electric pole
On August 2, Li Yinsu was still wearing the pair of yellow slippers she had escaped with. Now only one of her five cars is left, and she found two at the foot of the mountain more than 100 meters away. The first silver van was overturned and crushed under a utility pole, and the second car was in the pile of branches. Out of shape, wrinkled and missing wheels. Inside she found the driver’s book covered in mud. She still doesn’t know where the fourth and fifth cars are.
Li Yinsu found one of his cars.
Her warehouse in the next village was completely submerged. Under the flooded roof, more than 50 sets of assembled cabinets, more than 50 drawings in the computer that have not yet started construction, and some boards are all soaked in water.
On August 2, she looked up and saw a helicopter hovering over Mentougou, “The plane is coming.”
In the past, she could return to Shuiyuzui Village along the road beside the Yongding River. Today, salvaged cars are parked along the Yongding River, deformed to varying degrees. People are dragging suitcases, carrying backpacks, or walking on the road in silence with nothing. The road was broken, and the car could not move forward. The rescue team, survivors, and people looking for relatives all entered and exited on the abandoned railway tracks halfway up the mountain.
An elderly couple in their 60s and 70s who lived in Xiehejian Village, each pulled a small cart for grocery shopping, loaded some medicines and vegetables onto the railroad tracks, and delivered supplies to the elderly people who stayed in the village . “We’re all friends.” Liu Xiumei said. She didn’t fall asleep for three consecutive nights, “I’m afraid, I’m afraid when I think about it.”
The couple have an orchard near their home and have planted more than 300 apple, peach and pear trees over the past 10 years. It was the season when the peaches were ripe, and before they could be picked, the fruit trees were washed away.
“It’s good that people are fine.” Li Yinsu comforted her. She always comforts people she meets in this way. On the railway track, she also met her old client Yu Youfu. Yu Youfu is from Dingjiatan. A mountain next to Shuiyuzui Village is Dingjiatan Village. Yu Youfu said that Dingjiatan below the railway track is completely buried. After he settled his mother in the city, he went back to Dingjiatan to look for his wife, but he still couldn’t find her.
“It will be fine.” Li Yinsu comforted him.
The flood in Xiehejian Village has not completely receded, and it passes through the gaps between people’s houses along the mountain like a small river. The signal, water and electricity were all cut off. At noon on August 2, a voice sounded on the radio—”To ensure the safety of everyone…everyone who can seek refuge with relatives and friends should go to relatives and friends as much as possible, and those who cannot seek refuge with relatives and friends can be transferred to the 268 Hospital…”
The house of a villager in Shuiyuzui Village was half flooded.
Along the railway track, one kilometer away from Xiehejian, you will find Shuiyuzui Village where Li Yinsu’s family lives. On weekdays, she had to go through a tunnel on her way home, but now it has collapsed. After the flood receded, high-voltage electric poles were inserted obliquely at the entrance of the cave, leaving only a thin layer of railway on the roof of the cave. The barbed wire fence that had been used to separate the railway from the village has all collapsed. The lowest house, closest to the tracks, is still submerged.
A pond had formed beside the tracks, and a makeshift bridge had been built using a pile of tree stumps washed down the hill.
A man in a white vest held a transparent plastic box and stood on the roof of his house, which was buried in mud with only half of the windows left. He tried to salvage the last property. After noon, he only fished out a blue plaid scarf from the water, wrung out the water, folded it, and put it in a plastic box.
After turning over the railway track and going down the mountain, there is a community of two-story buildings, which was initiated by the village secretary a few years ago. Right now, they are all but buried with only the second story and the red roof exposed. Li Yinsu watched for a long time in front of a certain family. The granddaughter of this family was named Doudou, and she had a good time with her daughter. Doudou’s grandmother lost contact. A female village secretary in the village told her in a hoarse voice that all the people in this community had been transferred in advance. She shouted at the top of her voice for three days.
In the community, a middle-aged woman with short curly hair came back to look for her dog. Before leaving, she left enough food and water for the dog. After the sun cleared that day, she came back to pick up a mud dog that was soaked all over.
“Why are you so miserable, I’m here to pick you up.” She said as she picked it up and put it in a red canvas bag.
Further down the mountain is the Yongding River, whose embankment has collapsed. All the shops along the river were flooded with muddy water. Boss Qiu, who opened a Shandong steamed bun shop by the river, was using a shovel to clear the mud from the shop. On July 31, the steamed white steamed buns were all overturned in the mud and were rotting, attracting a few flies to surround them.
When the flood came, Boss Qiu took his family out to evacuate to a high-voltage electric pole. The electric pole fell down and crushed his 26-year-old daughter. “If you hurt your lumbar spine, you will most likely be paraplegic,” he said. There was no ups and downs in his tone, no expression on his face. He stayed in the hospital for the past few days, unable to do anything, and went back to the shop to clear the mud.
Villagers built bridges with debris washed up with water.
The entrance of Shuiyuzui Village faces the Yongding River, and the wooden gate is still there, with the words “The First Village of Jingxia Ancient Road” written on the gate. Li Yinsu stood at the entrance of the village and watched for a while, “Everything becomes a memory after a single encounter with the water.”
She took photos in front of all the passages that had entered the village, and then walked to the road that had been cleared. She has to rush back to the store in the city to communicate with more than 50 customers about order refunds.
“No one else can smoke in my car, but you can because you are so brave”
On August 2, the urban area of Mentougou was filled with the smell of dust and decaying garbage. The roar of the forklift and the sizzle of the high-pressure water gun are all mixed with the car horn.
Maintenance personnel in orange clothes can be seen everywhere on the road, and dozens of them appear on the side of the street and at the intersection. In a small area near Xinqiao South Street, trucks were transporting silt back and forth. People opened the front and rear hoods, doors, and sunroofs of the cars, and washed the cars inside and out. A few people were worried about the open hood, and their car couldn’t move.
An old man in his 70s took a shovel to clear the mud from the bicycle shed. “I was born in 1949, a Liberation brand. It’s not hard to support the edge for so many years.” She said while bending over to shovel mud.
On Shuangyu Road, a shop in Daoxiang Village has been open for more than 10 years. The flood flooded into the store halfway up the door, and after the water receded, the oven, counter, and food boxes were all covered in sludge. The store manager led more than 30 shop assistants to clear the silt. The hundreds of boxes that used to hold dim sum were now filled with silt. Five or six counters were lifted out and placed on the side of the road, with all the glass on them missing.
The clerk of the staple food store next door took the water hose and washed the ground in front of the door over and over again. The owner of the printing shop on the other side is also moving the printers outside the house one by one. The boss of Daoxiang Village saw it and shouted: “You all wait for me, I can’t clean up here, and no one can clean up.” Several people with sweaty heads laughed after hearing this.
At noon on August 2, Daoxiang Village on Shuangyu Road was cleaning up the silt.
In the Mentougou District Hospital not far away, water pumps, forklifts, and trailers drove into the parking lot one after another. Several young people who grew up near the hospital took shovels and scooped up the mud in the backyard. Several nurses and family members carried buckets and ran to the water truck at the entrance of the hospital to collect water.
Some are still waiting for water to come. Someone flushed the toilet with basins of rainwater received a few days ago, and someone pumped water from a well near the community for emergency treatment. Others are still waiting for news from their families. Yao Wanyun finally waited for news from her mother, which was good news—she arrived at the resettlement site safely.
The sky was fine, and the sun quickly dried the silt. A car drove across the road in Mentougou City, kicking up waves of loess. A man initiated a “voluntary rescue convoy” call in his circle of friends. He wanted to transport all the people from the mountain resettlement site to the urban area with a few friends.
“我们都是这条沟里长大的孩子。” 他说。他认识的朋友们大多是门头沟斜河涧、水峪嘴、丁家滩一带的，大家的房子在这场大雨里都没了。他家的楼房还在，却一直没联系上父亲。话讲到这里，他沉默了。
李银素用自家店里的打印机免费帮男人打印了十几张“义务救援” 的贴纸。男人临走前，她又说起这几天她常常安慰他人的话：“没事的，一定会没事的”。
手机电量还剩3% 的赵康搭上一辆救援车，到三家店火车站下到公路，打上了一辆出租车。他终于回到他熟悉的世界，手机也在车里充上电了。
他的裤腿和鞋全是泥，车里很干净，他有点不好意思。
“你是救援去了吗？” 司机问。
“我是从山上走出来的。”
“你太勇敢了！” 司机把烟递给赵康。
“别人都不能在我车上抽，但是你能抽。” 司机说，“因为你太勇敢了。”
文中姚宛芸、王勇顺、李志伟、杨柳、刘秀梅、余友福皆为化名。
题图：2023 年8 月1 日，北京门头沟区潭柘寺镇南辛房村，一位村民查看自己家里受损的房屋。来源：视觉中国。
文内图片除注明外，由作者拍摄。
本文转自： https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1787
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