Chapter 3921: Participating in the Rescue

Su Xinghui said in a deep voice, "Old He, stop arguing with me. We have indeed rested on the road, and your current state is very poor. If you don't rest, and you get sick from exhaustion, it will be even more troublesome. Do you understand?"

Cai Jingsheng also said, "That's right, Old He, stop arguing. Mayor Su makes sense. Tonight, you should all get some good rest. You must seize the time Mayor Su and the others have bought for you, rest well, and no matter what sounds you hear, you must fall asleep. Once you've rested, you can work hard tomorrow!"

He Fusheng, a man in his fifties and a tough-as-nails character, had a broken arm. Just a moment ago, when Gao Xulin set his bone and applied a splint, he hadn't even groaned once. Yet now, his throat choked up. After a long while, he nodded heavily and said, "Alright, Mayor Su, Director Cai, I will definitely get some good rest!"

Although it was agreed that the Linshan Rescue Team would take the lead tonight, He Fusheng still arranged for some young local cadres to serve as guides for the rescue team; otherwise, they wouldn't know which areas to prioritize for rescue.

After finishing this simple yet hearty dinner, the rescue team members began their work.

The first to start working were the medical personnel like Gao Xulin. They treated the survivors who had been pulled out. Those with only minor external injuries just needed bandaging, while those who were seriously injured required immediate surgery.

The more than ten surgeons among Gao Xulin's team were all capable of performing independent surgeries, provided they had a nurse as an assistant, so their work began the earliest.

Everyone specifically set up several tents and installed medical instruments and equipment inside, turning them into simple yet effective operating rooms. Gao Xulin and his team began performing surgeries on the critically injured.

In fact, some of the doctors from the local hospitals were also survivors of the disaster. They had already been engaged in intense rescue work since yesterday, but the local hospitals had all been razed to the ground, and there was a severe shortage of medical instruments, equipment, and medicine. They could only rely on medicine dug out by construction machinery to provide simple bandaging for the wounded; surgery was impossible.

But now, the rescue team had brought a large amount of relief supplies, even including surgical instruments and plasma, which made surgery possible. These local doctors and nurses changed into white coats and joined the rescue efforts, which immediately increased the efficiency of treating the wounded.

As for the local construction machinery, after being refueled, they roared to life once more, moved onto the ruins, and began rescue work. Coupled with the dozen or so large machines brought by the rescue team, the progress of the rescue work suddenly accelerated.

He Fusheng led the local soldiers and civilians into the tents to begin resting. They were all in dire need of rest, especially the children. They had been subjected to immense terror and had gone thirty hours without rest; their mental endurance had reached its limit, so they had to rest immediately.

Amidst the loud roar of the construction machinery, these people, exhausted to the extreme, soon fell asleep, and snoring could be heard from every tent.

However, amidst this snoring, there was also the sound of weeping. This was the weeping of those who had lost their loved ones. When they were engaged in rescue work, they hadn't had time for grief, but now that things had quieted down, they began to mourn.

At first, the weeping was like a trickling stream, but grief is contagious. Soon, the weeping grew louder. That night, it was confirmed that over a hundred households had lost loved ones, and even more had family members whose fate remained unknown. How could they not weep?

Su Xinghui was currently in the middle of the ruins, searching for signs of life. He also heard this burst of weeping, and he secretly told himself that he must strive to save more people so that there would be fewer people weeping.

In the three days following the earthquake, which is the golden rescue period, the possibility of survival for those buried in the ruins is still very high if rescue is timely. After these three days, their chances of survival would become smaller and smaller, so this was a race against time.

Su Xinghui brought a few rescue team members, with a young cadre from the Xingfu County government leading the way, and they were followed by a loader and an excavator.

The area they were searching was the southeastern part of Xingfu County, an old urban district. A large number of buildings here were built at least thirty years ago, and various types of illegal structures had been built on the original streets; it was a typical shantytown.

The buildings in this shantytown were quite old and were all brick-concrete structures. When they were built, earthquake resistance was not considered, so in this massive earthquake, none of the buildings in this shantytown were spared; they all became ruins.

The roads in this shantytown were intricate and narrow, so after the earthquake occurred, not many people were able to escape. Of the thousands of residents in this area, apart from those who were at work or school and not at home, at least half of the remaining thousands were buried inside.

From yesterday through today, the rescuers had indeed saved quite a few people from here because the buildings here were not high, with the tallest being perhaps only four stories, so even if buried, they were not buried deep.

However, as of now, at least one or two hundred people were still buried in this shantytown, and search and rescue work needed to be carried out urgently.

This time, Yu Ruizhi's Xinhuo Foundation had brought a lot of high-tech equipment, such as satellite phones, with each rescue team having one to communicate with each other in the disaster area where communication networks had been completely destroyed, as well as to contact the outside world. Su Xinghui used this to report his safety to his family.

In addition, they also brought life detectors. Using this equipment, they could detect whether there were signs of life under the ruins, allowing them to act with a clear target.

In short, this rescue team was very well-equipped with various rescue devices, and coupled with large machinery, a rescue team of five or six people could exert a considerable effect.

Soon, the life detector detected signs of life under a section of the ruins, and Su Xinghui immediately had the two machines begin excavating this area.

This ruin appeared to have been formed by the collapse of a three or four-story building. From outside the ruins, one could still see oil felt inside, which was likely an illegal structure built by local residents that had also collapsed.

The excavation work of the two machines was carried out very carefully. Even in places without signs of life, there might be the remains of victims, so they carefully dug out the concrete components in the ruins one by one and transported them to the side.

Su Xinghui and the others all wore safety helmets with special rechargeable xenon lamps on them, illuminating the ruins brightly to facilitate machine operation.

During this time, the rescue team members discovered two sets of remains. They directed the machines to carefully move the large concrete components next to the remains, and finally, they moved the smaller concrete blocks by hand.

Su Xinghui also participated in the work of moving concrete blocks. He saw those two sets of remains with his own eyes. One was an elderly man, and the other was a middle-aged woman. Their faces were full of pain, their bodies were covered in wounds, and their bodies were twisted, clearly having endured immense pain and fear before death.

This was the first time Su Xinghui had participated in such rescue work, and it was also the first time he had seen such victims of an earthquake. This gave him a huge shock, but he soon adapted. After all, he had even experienced something like rebirth; what else could scare him?

As for the other rescue team members, they were even more accustomed to such scenes, as they had all participated in similar rescue activities.

After moving away a large number of concrete blocks, the signal from the life detector became stronger and stronger. They knew they were about to reach the target, and at this moment, they became even more careful.

After moving away the last large concrete block, they heard the crying of an infant. This made them feel somewhat incredible. Was it actually an infant buried under such deep ruins?

The infant's cry was very weak, no wonder no one had heard it at first. This was also a signal, proving that the infant's body was already very weak, so they had to speed up.

Now that the large concrete blocks had all been moved away by machinery, the smaller concrete blocks could no longer be moved by machinery, because machinery, after all, was not as precise as human hands. During the moving process, it was very easy to cause a secondary collapse of the concrete blocks, resulting in secondary injuries.

Therefore, they all used their hands to move these concrete blocks.

Although these concrete blocks were considered relatively small, their weight was not light, at least several dozen jin each, and only strong young people like them could move them.

They moved dozens of concrete blocks in a row, among which several blocks weighing over a hundred jin were carried away by two or three people. The infant's crying became clearer, but the infant would cry for a while and then stop for a while, clearly the infant was already very tired.

Just then, everyone saw a huge prefabricated slab lying across the ruins, and the infant's crying was coming from underneath it. This huge prefabricated slab could not be moved by human power, so Su Xinghui decisively had the excavator move this slab away. Since the crying was already clearly audible, it was expected that the infant would be visible after moving this slab.

To prevent the concrete blocks from collapsing further, everyone had already cleared away all the small concrete pieces on and around the precast slab.

The excavator operator displayed his god-like skill; he used a single iron tooth on the excavator bucket to hook the steel reinforcement bar on the precast slab, then gently lifted it up. This made everyone extremely nervous, and they held their breath, seemingly afraid that if they breathed too heavily, the precast slab would fall.