Looking for the true story of 1976 Tangshan earthquake?

& ltbr & gt A few years ago, there was a movie called Titanic, which reminded me of many past events.

& ltbr & gt Most of the survivors of this ship have passed away in history (it seems that there are only three or four survivors now), so that for these witnesses, no one can really know the detailed scenes at that time in that history. If they are all dead, this history is like a lamb to be slaughtered, left for people to interpret and mourn. This complex seems to confirm the ruthlessness and vicissitudes of history from another side. What I want to talk about here is a disaster I experienced, because I am also a witness to it.

& ltbr & gt1July 28th, 976, my eighth birthday just passed 10 days, which is almost unusual for ordinary people in China, but it is different for me, because I am from Tangshan.

& ltbr & gt It took a long time to know what the concept of 240,000 is and how much area it needs to carry if it is gathered in the square. However, in an instant, 240,000 murders went to heaven together. Its concept is that almost13 people in Tangshan have left this world forever in an instant.

& ltbr & gt When I was pulled out of the ruins by my father, I was really shocked, because I didn't know where I was, and I looked around. There was no house standing in my sight, and there was no sound at all. Only sporadic people stood on the roof half naked, and only a little rain fell from the sky. I recalled this scene when I imagined what hell was like for a long time. I think hell should be like this.

Everything after & ltbr & gt is far from an 8-year-old child. For us, this is more like the beginning of a farce. It's just that everything seems unreasonable. Some people are robbing, some are looking for water, some are making rumors, and some are looking for relatives, but almost no one has special sadness for the dead, perhaps because they are too numb, perhaps because almost every family has been hurt to varying degrees. People's faces are almost numb and don't agree with these. At night, the rain still didn't stop. On Fuxing Road (then a main street in Tangshan), the bodies were displayed on the west side of the road, and the living people gathered on the east side of the road. The smell of cooked food came from the temporary tent, and people (including those whose loved ones died) were busy, as if everything was the same.

& ltbr & gt Many years later, I feel that after experiencing great changes and disasters, people should be numb. This is a situation of self-protection. So when I see some people crying because of the loss of their loved ones, I always guess that he or she may just be because of what others think of him, or that there is something wrong with seeing him cry without sadness.

& ltbr & gt Later, things seemed to get more interesting. When people meet, the most popular words are: "How's it going? How many people died in your family? " Prove that life is the best black humor writer. People talk more about whose family robbed a lot of clothes and food, and who was tied to a telephone pole by the militia for robbery and died in the sun. I think there is a cruel desire to get something for nothing in everyone's heart, which is stimulated to the greatest extent under such circumstances.

& ltbr & gt During the 0/0 anniversary and 20th anniversary of the earthquake/kloc-,I read some literary works that made me scoff. They try their best to carry forward some positive things, or to explore some shining places in human nature. I think maybe, maybe there will be, but in a catastrophe, people first become beasts, even if they help each other, it is extremely utilitarian, far from being pure and selfless. So I think people should be like this, and human nature is first manifested as animal nature.

& ltbr & gt The fact is that everyone is selfish, lonely and aggressive, with few exceptions.

& ltbr & gt Now it seems that people at that time were more like animals without consciousness, running blindly for survival, and there was nothing noble to speak of. Everything is so absurd and reasonable, an ignorant age!

& ltbr & gt Now many people in Tangshan have settled here after going to aid construction, and many have graduated and completed their lives. I wonder how many people like me are left. Watching the city grow up day by day, watching people wake up from ignorance, sometimes they feel lonely. I wonder if there is anyone who thinks like me. Perhaps fewer and fewer people know the truth soon, or many people simply believe what others say. Looking at the ugly earthquake-resistant monument in Tangshan, I always feel lonely, because there are too many things misread and misinterpreted, and no one can make it clear.

Forever nightmare

It's time to talk about the earthquake. Nearly 30 years have passed, but I still dare not face it. For many years, when people asked me that I was from Tangshan, I was a little timid with my eyes wide open, but I still asked curiously for fear of touching my past scars! In their view, it is a miracle that people who have come out of the earthquake can survive. I can't imagine that no one was killed or injured at home.

To say that my family is really lucky, at that time, except for my second aunt's two-year-old daughter Pumbaa, more than a dozen other people in the big family were safe and sound. The third aunt and the second aunt were seriously injured, and the others were basically safe. It's luck, but it should be said that poverty saved our lives.

I remember that at that time, many families, if they had money, rushed to build houses with coal tar and cement roofs, because such roofs were waterproof but heavy. So the sign that distinguishes the rich from the poor can be distinguished from the appearance of the house at a glance. When the earthquake came, all the houses fell down, but this roof with class marks killed many people. The roof of my house is between the rafters and the reed curtain (I know this very well, because these things were on my head at that time, and I could reach out and touch the reed). There is also a big wardrobe at home that leans against the fallen roof, leaving a slope angle and giving us a chance to escape.

In fact, there are signs of earthquakes, but people at that time were still ignorant, and few people knew what earthquakes were like. Before 728, many people were talking about Xingtai earthquake and Liaoning Haicheng earthquake, but what they were most afraid of was the tsunami, which shows how poor their knowledge is.

July 27th was the worst day of my life. In the evening, the sunset in the west is horribly red, like blood, and the air seems to be frozen and suffocating. Although it was summer, I never felt so irritable and sultry in my memory, and now I still feel creepy in retrospect. Mother likes raising chickens, and these usually good animals are very upset. It's getting dark. They don't go back to their nests as usual, but run around anxiously. There are still many mice moving in broad daylight, and those who help the old and the young are not afraid of people at all. Animals are smarter than people, and people are in a daze, allowing danger to approach.

Because of the hot weather, my brother and I were forced to take a bath and finally fell asleep. I remember dreaming that I was taken to Beijing by my mother and got on the dream train. I feel that the train is shaking, which is amazing and enjoyable, and makes me laugh very happily. I can still recall that trembling feeling, so real, just like a dream last night. Then I heard my father calling my name at the top of his voice-"Tianshu! Tianshu! " When I opened my eyes, it was dark all around, because I was stuck between the roof and the bed, and my head and body could not move. I'm in a hurry. Tell dad to turn on the light quickly. I also pointed out that my father's light rope is in the east. Later, I found it was still dark, so I called the light rope to the west and began to shout. It was because I kept shouting that my dad found my place and dragged me out.

At that time, my father was 37 years old, about my age now. He is a gymnast, and his reaction is quite quick. He jumped out of the window as soon as the bed moved during the earthquake. At that time, the house had not fallen down. My father said that it took dozens of seconds to shake down the house, which was enough time for reaction. But I can't. At that time, I was still intoxicated in my dream of going to Beijing! Others reacted slowly and tried to run out of the door, only to be hit on the head by falling bricks.

I was the last one out. I estimate that it should be four o'clock. I would be stupid if I saw it! Surrounded by rubble, it seems that I have never been to a place. I can't see any buildings. It is raining lightly in the sky, and the air is filled with the smell of earth. After a long time of identification, I realized that I was standing on the roof of my house, because I found the begonia fruit tree at home. Because of this landmark building as a frame of reference, I gradually understood my original position.

In a blink of an eye, cries spread everywhere, and cries for help and groans came from the ruins. Seeing that the family were all right, my father rushed to the opposite side to save people. Opposite is a family named Yao. Although he has the same surname as my mother, he is always dirty, but at this time my father went to save people first. I remember the family didn't show gratitude later, but I think God will punish them. I have always been paranoid that the Tangshan earthquake is actually God's punishment for mankind. It's not that those of us who survived are innocent, but that I deeply understand how ignorant, stupid and lacking the light of humanity people living in this industrial city are. Many people's lives are no different from those of animals. Especially in the late Cultural Revolution, people were full of suspicion and hostility, and human nature became extremely humble.

One day passed, and my father was busy saving lives and building a simple place for himself to bow down. My brother and I ran around and explored everywhere. Seeing that many people were busy grabbing things at home, we also took part in it and grabbed several stacks of movie tickets at the Great Wall Cinema. I was happy to see movies for free in the future! As soon as I ran out of the cinema, I heard a bang and the cinema fell down. I was shocked and thought I had done something bad, but I felt my feet began to tremble strongly again. It was an aftershock. It is getting late. At that time, a simple house was built on Fuxing Road, the main road in lunan district, and many people cooked porridge by fire. On the other side of the road, the bodies lined up. In the rain, the body oozed yellow liquid and soon began to stink, and the air was filled with the smell of dead mice. Now as long as I smell the dead mouse, I will immediately reproduce such a tragic scene, which makes my stomach tighten.

Too many people have died. Tangshan is the epicenter of the earthquake, lunan district is the epicenter of Tangshan, and Fuxing Road is the center of lunan district. A little further, it is the famous hill in China in previous decades. It is the birthplace of Pingju, with entertainment places like the Great World, which is as famous as Tianqiao Dashilan in Beijing. Nearly half the population of Tangshan lives here. When the earthquake happened, 240,000 people died. I also met my classmates in primary school, and I learned to ask who died like an adult. Someone told me that the monitor Ma Huanying, at that time, I was shocked. Is there any girl who used to lecture me in front of the queue and disappeared? It's really incredible.

It is estimated that there will be no disaster that can cause so many population injuries more than the Tangshan earthquake in the future. Because today's houses have certain anti-seismic functions, even a nuclear war would not cause such a terrible situation. It can be said that this is a sudden natural and man-made disaster.

In the next few days, people lost their senses, and many people regained their animality. There are many kinds of so-called bestiality, and possessiveness is one of them. Without the government, the short-term control vacuum makes people's desires constantly expand, and the evil deeds of others also greatly promote the psychology of conformity crime. Almost every family robbed and plundered. As long as there are men, they take advantage of their physical strength. Shops, department stores, factories and banks are all under surveillance. Many people take countless clothes home in plastic bags. Brave people will rob money. Fortunately, there were grassroots militia at that time, and sporadic gunshots rang out from time to time in the street. This was to punish people who robbed seriously, or to shoot people directly. I saw with my own eyes a man in his thirties, who was fixed on a telephone pole at Fuxing intersection with a steel wire through his collarbone by the militia, and died after three days of exposure. It can be seen that democracy and autocracy really cannot be simply judged. Later, after the PLA entered the country, the situation was brought under control. At that time, after the government's functions were restored, a circular was issued asking those who participated in the robbery to let bygones be bygones as long as they returned what they robbed. I have seen many records of this situation, but there is no record. It can be seen that people dare not say anything against themselves, but these dirty memories can be erased, but they cannot be forgotten.

Planes began to appear in the sky. Later, more and more helicopters were military. I stood on the ground, I could see the people on the plane looking down, and I saw that we were waving all the time, so I pushed my pockets down from the cabin. One of them landed at my mother's feet, and the people around me immediately went up and robbed. It turned out to be biscuits and the like, as well as steamed bread rolls and cakes in bags, but they were too hot.

After the earthquake, the water was cut off, so we had to look everywhere. Some people get ice cubes from the frozen hairtail in the freezer and turn it into water. Some people flush the water from underground wells in the street and drink it. Others don't know where they get the water, and they struggle painfully with diarrhea after drinking it. Water! That time is life! My father is better. He made a washbasin full of water made of popsicles. Although sweet, it was always clean, so he persisted for two days until the arrival of the People's Liberation Army.

The PLA came in by car. Although the road was bumpy, I finally came in and the turbulent life came to an end. There is a reportage "Who is the cutest person" written by Wei Wei since he was a child. If Tangshan is chosen, there may be two kinds of people selected. One is the People's Liberation Army. Without their children, there would be no Tangshan people today. Second, Shanghainese. A considerable number of doctors who supported Tangshan after the earthquake came from Shanghai, and many of them were directly benefited by Shanghai medical staff on the street. For this kind of grateful person, it is the simplest. When people all over the country are laughing at men in Shanghai, few Tangshan people make irresponsible remarks, and many things will never be forgotten.

Everything began to restore order, houses began to be rebuilt, disaster-stricken materials began to be distributed, and people began to go to other places to heal. After the earthquake, some neighboring provinces and cities received a large number of wounded people from Tangshan, so Tangshan became the area with the largest number of disabled people in China. People from Tangshan can often be seen in disabled sports meetings, just as Tangshan accent can often be heard in the Ministry of Coal. More orphans appeared overnight. I didn't know who their parents were and what their surnames were, so I changed their surnames to Party, Party Yuhong, Party Yuxin and Party Guoyu. If you meet them, you can ask him if he is from Tangshan.

After the People's Liberation Army (PLA) moved in, people felt that with the government's management, they had to ask the PLA for many things, such as water supply, food delivery, building houses, stripping people's clothes and even getting a haircut. I remember a very young soldier. We call him Xiao Wei, a Sichuanese, who was only 19 years old at that time. He likes to play with my two brothers. We often take his fire truck to deliver water to various houses. I remember he was reluctant to give us a thermometer and an iron bucket of compressed biscuits when he left. This kind of biscuit is very easy to use, and I believe Tangshan people will have an impression. With Xiao Wei, I have always had a good impression on Sichuanese, and even I can't hate migrant workers.

The People's Liberation Army also helped us rescue grandma who was buried in the ruins. Grandma is my grandfather's sister-in-law My brother and I grew up with her. Because of her age and deafness, we all think she must be finished. I didn't expect her to be in a daze for five days. Sometimes when it rains a few drops of water, she licks it in. Sometimes when she is hungry, she eats some falling dust. When someone walks by, she shouts, but there is no sound or machinery outside. There is no way to dig the roof by hand. It was not until the People's Liberation Army came that the rubble covering it was cleared away and she was rescued. The PLA brought her half a watermelon and swallowed it in one gulp. I didn't cry excitedly to thank Chairman Mao like the old Kailuan miner on TV after being rescued, so I just patronized and ate. It can be seen that people from rural areas have low consciousness! I must be the protagonist of a series of news reports now and become famous overnight. Later, she lived in obscurity for more than ten years and died in Handan one day at the end of last century. I don't know how she reviewed the experience of being buried for five days and five nights.

Time passes slowly. It has been many years since the earthquake. But every July, a faint flame is lit in the streets on summer nights, and paper money is burned to death. Only death is clean and a satisfactory solution. The living still have to endure the helplessness of this world and ignorance of evil and ugliness. Especially on the night of July 28, the streets must be dotted, and there may be a considerable number of murders among 240 thousand people. They can't let go of their regrets and unhappy knots, so they wander around year after year, not knowing what to do and what to do.

It is said that the Tangshan earthquake has nothing to do with coal mining in Kailuan, but if it really has nothing to do with it, why did it collapse and sink in a large area after the earthquake? Why do people gradually evacuate residents in the old areas and become uninhabited places? Without man-made disasters, there would be no natural disasters, but unfortunately we didn't understand at that time, or no one made us understand. Just like people in Tangshan were still crying sadly on September 9, although some people behind us muttered whether it was right or wrong not to ask for international aid, the reverence for Chairman Mao made us lose our ability to doubt, just like sheep following blindly.

That's enough. It's time to escape the nightmare.

I remember 1986, on the 10th anniversary of the earthquake, Qian Gang, a writer of the People's Liberation Army, wrote a reportage "Tangshan Earthquake". When is the most popular genre? At that time, some public feelings were aroused, but after careful study, there were still many loopholes. The main problem is simply to consider the brilliance of people flashing in the earthquake from the front, but all parties know that many things are propaganda and false. However, the heavy story hidden behind it has never been mentioned, even though many local writers have kept it a secret. Here, like a black box, you can't see anything suspicious. Only those who want to know will vaguely know that there should be something else in it.

When I was in college, I often stood on the campus full of the moon and looked at the ruins of the library in the moonlight. The steel bars and structures distorted by great power were so ferocious, and the extremely thick walls were so fragile under the great power of nature. In fact, we humans are not as powerful and beautiful as we think. A lot of ugliness is hidden in people's hearts and there is no chance to show it, that's all.