Chapter 340 - 238: Launching the Rescue (Third Update, Beginning of the Month Seeking Support)
The journey to Lin City did not encounter any unforeseen circumstances. After all, it’s merely a distance of several dozen kilometers, and Chen Xin’s vehicle was equipped with comprehensive detection methods, having a well-informed grasp of road conditions, which made the likelihood of accidents quite low.
However, when the group arrived in Lin City, they were astounded by the current state of the city.
The city’s topography is typical of a valley between two mountains, with the other end of the valley facing the Yangtze River, and a lake located between the city and the river.
The lake is a remnant of the ancient Yunmeng Marsh, long since disconnected from the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake. Before the disaster, the crabs produced there were a famous local product, with a large number of crabs consumed during the crab-eating season every year coming from here.
But now, not to mention the entire lake has frozen into ice, making it impossible to enjoy delicious crabs, the backflow of seawater caused by the previous tsunami also led to a surge in the Yangtze River’s water level, flooding the lake, with the "coastline" once approaching the city district of Lin City.
In fact, it was not just Lin City — even though the city is located in the central region of Flame Country, the backflow of seawater caused by the tsunami had reached its limit by the time it got to Dongting Lake but still raised its water level significantly, causing most of the areas along the lake in the city to suffer from flooding.
If not for the hilly terrain and relatively high elevation of the city, most parts of the city district would have been submerged in water.
Lin City, on the other hand, was in an even worse situation, as the rise and freezing of the water level left the side of Lin City facing the Yangtze River exposed and unguarded.
When the blizzard struck, the valley topography between two mountains, along with the flat ice surface, made Lin City entirely like a wind pocket. The orientation of the mountains caused the wind speed of the blizzard blowing towards Lin City to be faster and the snowstorm more concentrated.
The abundant moisture initially brought by the proximity to the Yangtze River and lake all turned into ice and snow in the low temperature, blown towards Lin City by the blizzard.
It was precisely because of these factors that the entire Lin City was almost completely buried under snow.
The vast majority of the city’s buildings were buried under the snow, with only a very few of the taller buildings having their roofs exposed.
After all, Lin City is just a county-level city, with not many high-rise buildings in the city district. Under the ravages of the blizzard, most buildings didn’t have sufficient height and were naturally engulfed by the snow.
But facing this situation, everyone in the rescue team felt as if they might have arrived too late.
"Lin City... could everyone be buried under the snow?" A female voice queried this over the walkie-talkie.
She was a doctor in the rescue team, who volunteered to come for the sake of saving lives. As a local, she also had some relatives and friends in Lin City.
However, upon seeing a city completely buried under snow, she found it hard to believe there could be any survivors left in the city.
Chen Xin naturally had similar worries, although he was relatively more optimistic.
"The situation shouldn’t be that bad. In previous communications with the city district, Lin City hadn’t reported any major issues. It’s impossible for the entire city to have disappeared in such a short time before we arrived." Chen Xin stated calmly, and proactively proposed a response plan: "The drone and radar in my car can detect life signals. Let’s find a place to park the car first, and carefully search for any signs of survivors."
"I agree with Chen Xin’s opinion. Everyone find a place to park first and understand the situation." As the leader of the rescue team, the captain chose to support Chen Xin at this moment.
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Seven vehicles drove into Lin City, heading towards the area that used to be the city center. During this journey, Chen Xin released his drone, switching the radar to life signal search mode, hoping to find traces of survivors.
Meanwhile, on the other vehicles, the captain was trying to contact Lin City Hall to relay the message that the rescue team had arrived. The people in the other cars couldn’t help but feel anxious. They were worried about Lin City’s situation, concerned about whether they really had arrived too late, while also actively making various preparations.
After all, if there were still survivors in Lin City, once they were found, the rescue team would have to immediately commence rescue operations.
In this process, Chen Xin’s radar and drone were the first to detect signs of survivors.
"We detected heat signal nearby, preliminarily determined to be the vent of a shelter." The display of heat sources on the radar was quite evident, as Chen Xin merely elevated the drone to a high altitude, switching to infrared mode to locate several obvious heat sources.
Chen Xin was unsure of the exact situation beneath the snow, but judging from the number and distribution of the heat sources, he believed these to be the main shelters currently existing in Lin City.
Learning that the shelter was still operational, the people in the cars could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. This was indeed good news; at least they hadn’t come for nothing, and Lin City hadn’t become an empty city.
Apart from Chen Xin’s news, the captain also contacted Lin City Hall and informed them that the rescue team had arrived.
Lin City Hall was extremely excited and delighted by the arrival of the rescue team. Despite the small number of rescue personnel and the limited assistance they could provide, it at least indicated that the city district still had the resources to aid them. The arrival of the rescue team injected hope into their cold and dark circumstances.
Following the information obtained from the captain’s contact with Lin City Hall, the rescue team stopped at a location in what should have been the city center’s square.
This place used to be a commercial plaza, nearby is the largest shelter in Lin City.
Compared to the city district, Lin City had only one large shelter and three medium-sized shelters, accommodating only a total of tens of thousands of survivors post-disaster.
During the previous blizzard, one of the medium shelters was buried by snow, and now abandoned. The remaining population survival number in Lin City might already be less than a hundred thousand.
Understanding the situation, after parking the cars, the captain approached Chen Xin. Along with him were the commanding SWAT officer and a doctor.
"Sorry, Chen Xin, only your car has more space, so we’ll use it for a briefing." The captain apologized to Chen Xin, then sat down with others at Chen Xin’s invitation, to discuss business: "Now that we have arrived in Lin City, the city government just briefed us on the relevant situation. The situation in Lin City is dire, and we must discuss how the rescue team should carry out the rescue work."