Tangshan, China, July 28 (Reporter Guo Xiangyu, Xiao Yuan and Du Zhen) According to the Voice of China report, today is the 40th anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake. Forty years ago, Tangshan, Hebei Province, took the lives of 240,000 people in just 23 seconds, and made this industrial city an island for 15 days after the earthquake.
Li Shengtang, then deputy director of the dispatching room of Tangshan Airport, and Li Yulin, vice chairman of the trade union in Tangshan Mining Area of Kailuan Coal Mine, were both survivors of the Tangshan earthquake. When the earthquake occurred, they went to Beijing from the air and the ground respectively to ask for support from the central government.
The earthquake shattered their families and changed their life trajectory. After a lapse of 40 years, every moment of the earthquake, help and disaster relief is still fresh.
On July 27, 1976, in Tangshan that night, the weather was particularly sultry and the sky was surprisingly bright. Li Shengtang, then deputy director of the dispatching room of Tangshan Airport, recalled that his wife thought of the earthquake at that time. "My wife told me, oh, is there going to be an earthquake? I’m afraid she can’t sleep, so I said, don’t dream, it’s so hot in summer. “
At the same time, Li Yulin, vice chairman of the labor union in Tangshan mining area of Kailuan coal mine, just rose to the well and worked underground for two days and one night. After returning home, he was so tired that he didn’t even eat, so he fell on the bed.
At 3: 42 am on July 28th, the earth shook. Li Shengtang, who survived, climbed out of the ruins, held a pair of children under a tree in the yard and turned and ran to the airport dispatching building 1 km away. However, the damage of the airport made Li Shengtang almost desperate. Four of the eight pillars of the dispatching building were broken and the command system was completely paralyzed. Li Shengtang and his comrades searched the whole station and only found a barely usable ultrashort wave radio station.
Li Shengtang recalled: "There is only one navigation station left. What’s wrong with the air station, the fixed tower and the antenna? There are two planes. Li -2 plane can fly in complex weather, but later it was found that the communication car was still working, and the back was broken, so it could be sent out, and it could generate electricity. “
Kailuan coal mine. Li Yulin was in a hurry to get to the mining area, and he was worried about the underground workers whose life and death were unknown. Standing on the dark mine and shouting, the only people who can respond to Li Yulin are Cao Guocheng, director of the Armed Forces Department, Yuan Qingwu, the winch driver of the electromechanical department, and Cui Zhiliang, the driver of the mine rescue team. The only equipment that can be found is a mine ambulance that was not damaged by the earthquake.
To Beijing! Report to the CPC Central Committee! This was the only way that Li Yulin could think of at that time. "The concept of going to Beijing came into being in the process of running from my home to the mine. All I saw was ruins and nothing else."
Thirty minutes after the earthquake, the red mine ambulance sounded the alarm, carrying four people, including Li Yulin, from the mining area and heading west to Beijing.
Asking for support from the central government is also the first thought in Li Shengtang’s mind. When he was about to start the radio station to guide the plane to fly to Beijing, he was held down by his comrades: taking off without approval is a violation of discipline.
After the earthquake in Tangshan, it began to rain, and Li Shengtang finally made a decision. After the earthquake, the first distress plane flying to Beijing rushed out of the runway and took off in the rain without a navigation platform and only under the naked eye command of Li Shengtang.
Li Shengtang said: "This is a special take-off in an extraordinary period. I asked the dispatcher to let the plane take off. In this way, it took off at 6 o’clock. "
When Li Yulin’s car arrived in Beijing, the Li -2 plane under the command of Li Shengtang also landed smoothly at Nanyuan Airport. Two cars galloped towards each other in the streets of Beijing in the early morning. Finally, they met in front of Xinhua Gate in Zhongnanhai. No greetings, no communication. What they are thinking about is how to report the disaster to the central authorities as quickly as possible.
4 hours and 18 minutes after the earthquake. Beijing, Ziguangge, Zhongnanhai. Li Yulin reported the disaster of Kailuan Coal Mine to the central leadership: there are still thousands of miners underground.
Li Yulin people didn’t know at that time that thousands of miners who fled to the alleys were waiting for an order in the dark 590 meters underground in Kailuan Coal Mine. After 40 years, Zhang Guocheng, an electromechanical worker, still clearly remembered the scene at that time.
Zhang Guocheng recalled: "At that time, it gave me the feeling that the working face collapsed, and the boards fell off, so we forced our way out through a small seam. The workers who came down from the construction site waited for the instructions from the leaders, and Xi’ an did not move. At that time, the organization was particularly strong and there was no chaos. "
The underground search was carried out nervously and orderly until the last worker was found. This team of thousands of people began to move step by step to the wellhead that did not collapse with the miner’s lamp overhead. In the end, all miners were safely raised.
Tangshan airport. Li Shengtang waited in the dispatching room all night, constantly debugging the buttons of the radio station for fear of missing any signal in the air.
9 am, the fifth hour after the earthquake. Finally, the radio came to call Tangshan Station in secret language, demanding landing conditions: this Mi -8 helicopter, which took off from Beijing Shahe Airport two hours ago, was the first rescue plane sent by the central authorities.
As the relief materials arrived in Tangshan, Li Yulin, who reported the disaster to the central authorities and returned to provide relief. On the way back to Kailuan coal mine, he shouted at the top of his voice and told the affected people along the way that the central government had decided to help Tangshan.
Li Yulin said: "I told them about the situation, and there were more and more people around. Oh, I’ve never heard that slogan. It’s all from the heart. Almost all of them shouted when they broke their throats. Many wounded people were lying on the ground. Although they couldn’t shout, I still remember the strength of opening my mouth now. "
Only when Li Yulin returned to Tangshan did he know that 14 relatives, including his parents and son, were killed in the earthquake. After hastily burying the next of kin, Li Yulin returned to the mine. With more than 20,000 miners trapped in Tangshan, Kailuan Coal Mine officially resumed production on the 10th day after the earthquake. "After the injured people have settled the dead, they all come back to mine. There are annoying drainage and mine protection, restoration of construction on the well, cleaning up things, etc., all of which are spread out. After ten days, the basic mines are full of people. At that time, everyone has difficulties, and if there is no difficulty, they will all come. "
As railways and highways have been severely damaged, opening air passages is the only choice for disaster relief. The air rescue officially began 5 hours and 18 minutes after the earthquake. However, the power was interrupted, the runway lights were completely extinguished, and there was no navigation equipment. Tangshan Airport became "blind". Without runway lights, the soldiers collected hundreds of lanterns instead. Thirteen types of aircraft from more than 30 airports across the country took off and landed in nearly a thousand aftershocks by listening to Li Shengtang’s ears and observing with the naked eye. When I was most nervous, I took off and landed a plane in an average of 2 minutes, which created a miracle in the history of world aviation. During the critical period of 14 days after the earthquake, more than 20,000 wounded people and countless relief materials took off and landed from the narrow runway of Tangshan Airport.
Li Shengtang said: "It is quite difficult to take off and land. Some large routes and small routes take off head-to-head, cross-take-off, and take off at both ends, and use one runway as two runways to maximize the airport take-off and landing rate, transport more wounded people and transport more relief materials. Up to 360 a day, with an average of 200 take-off and landing every day. I haven’t washed my face or rested for fifteen days. "
On August 11th, 15th day after the earthquake, the land route from Tangshan to the outside world was finally opened. Tangshan in ruins is finally no longer an island.
Li Shengtang, who is 80 years old, has some difficulty with his left foot. Every time he climbs a floor, he has to rest for a while. But as long as he hears a plane flying overhead, he will still be excited.
In the subsidence area of Kailuan coal mine where the victims were buried, now, the 2016 Tangshan World Horticultural Exposition Park has been built. The miners who experienced the earthquake have already retired, and Zhang Guocheng, an electromechanical worker, took a liking to photography after retirement. He said that he loves to pat the new Tangshan more. "I took a lot of pictures when the World Expo was not engaged in gardening. Now I have taken a lot of pictures when it is completed. I don’t need to say that others can see the changes before and after, right?"
However, when he reached the center of the park, he put down his camera and stood quietly. The theme sculpture "Danfeng Chaoyang" in front of him, which symbolizes the nirvana of the phoenix, seems to remind everyone who comes here not to forget the city’s past.
Zhang Guocheng said: "I have been in Tangshan for more than 60 years. You see that so many people died in the earthquake at that time and buried their bodies to restore their homes. More than 200,000 people died in Tangshan. He can still stand tall and stand tall. It is time to resume production and resume production. How to live and live? This is Tangshan people!"
