亲历汶川地震
钟宜昆目睹了整个四川地震，为我们细述了这个震惊的故事
记者: Thane Burnett, Toronto Sun 编译: 安婆婆编辑部
成都——在经历了10天的“石器时代”生活后，中国工程师钟宜昆用其口袋中唯一能找到的工具记录了他为了生存所做的努力。
他用一部手机记录了上月发生在中国心脏地带的大地震。在他被解救出来并空运到已成齑粉的“现代文明”区域后，他做的第一件事就是按下发送键，将这一切发送给正在加拿大焦急等待消息的儿子。
日记是从那举国都不会忘却的8分钟开始写的。
中国政府对于7.9级的512大地震官方记录时间是从14:28开始的；然而钟先生和其余在Loiand Scui Gin发电厂的工作人员距离震中如此之近，他们在整个中国感受到地震的8分钟前就赶到了地动山摇。
今年66岁的钟先生是一位兢兢业业脚踏实地的工程师，平时喜欢记录自己生活中发生的一些重要时间。
大地在震动
当天，钟先生原本打算工作半天，然后赶去帮朋友查看设备，在他将要离开的时候，他脚下的大地开始发生变化，周围山上的大石开始纷纷滚落滚入村庄所在的山谷，有的甚至重达5、6吨。
一开始，28名工人认为地震将会很快过去，然而他们并不知道他们所在地方正是地壳发生巨变的前沿地带。
这个地球在告诉他们，这将是一次令人望而生畏的巨变。
我们坐在钟宜昆位于都江堰市的房子门廊上，听他回忆说，“当时，周围传来了轰隆隆的声音，这声音听起来是如此的恐怖。”
“这声音像是火车的轰隆声，由远及近。”
天空慢慢变暗，似乎要和大地发生的变化相呼应。
这位高级工程师接着说，跟着震波开始来临，可以感受到它的强度是如此之大。
大家都坐在地上，双手抱头来抵挡四周的震波破坏房屋带来的后果，他们恐慌地彼此依偎着，亲眼看到周围两座大山的慢慢移动，最终合并到了一起。
距此150米开外有一家农民的家庭，位于两座大山之间，他们没有任何机会生还了，因为大山的移动速度实在太快，他们都来不及逃脱。
钟宜昆继续说着，“虽然天空很黑，可是我们仍然能看到一丝光线，像火焰般的光线。”
震波带给大地的压力使得这片区域开始闪现红光，像一只巨兽张大了嘴巴，要吞噬一切。
大山继续抖落着史前的尘埃，于是大地上到处都是滚动的巨石，许多人都被巨石砸到了，钟宜昆也被大石砸伤了背部和脚部。
天空渐渐开始恢复光亮，但是对于受困的他们来说紧紧是更清楚地意识到了自己身处的困境。当厚达23厘米的红色尘土席卷大地时，他们躲在了重型的机械装备后面，周围的一切都被吞噬了。在无法预知未来的情况下，钟宜昆用手机为自己拍了照片。
但当余震陆续而来的时候，大震造成的废墟再次被解体，大家都意识到自己被困住了——大山合并了，河流和公路被截断了。
发电厂陷入死一样的寂静，而他们的食物供给也仅仅是和当地一个农民分享的几袋大米，更糟糕的是，他们不知道他们所处山谷之外所发生的事。
被困的第一夜，开始下雨了，工人们躲在猪棚里避雨，这是唯一在山体崩塌后仍完好的建筑。
钟宜昆回忆这那晚，夜是如此的黑，已经伸手不见五指。
于是他开始翻看自己手机中的联系人，虽然由于通讯中断，他不能发出任何的讯息。
第二天，他们醒来，面对的是更多的余震。但是，人们更担心的是将有更大的灾难发生，守护这这个山谷的是中国最大的水坝，它储存着几百万升的水，一旦水坝出现裂缝后崩堤，所有人都将被洪水冲走，于是他们尽量望向高处，身体好的托着身体弱的，看的高一点，再高一点。
接下来的几天，他们都靠喝粥坚持着，他们有坚定的信念相信迎接他们的不会是死神。他们选出了四个身体素质最好的人，每人带上一条绳子、一把刀、一些米和两个鸡蛋，开始准备爬出山谷，寻求外界的救援。
钟宜昆说，“我担心自己的家人多过担心自己的安全。”因此他记录下了自己的心情，告诉自己的妻子和两个成年的孩子，他还活着，并让四个勇士中的其中一个带出去。人们相信这些勇士最终一定能克服困难，冲出去，虽然这很艰难。
第三天，农夫发现了一个有些损坏的20年前熊猫牌收音机，钟宜昆和他的伙伴们修复了这个机器，他们终于收听到了来自中国政府官方电台的消息，知道了自己并非唯一被困的地震受灾者，但是当他们听到军队正在四川省内进行扇形搜索的时候，他们知道在如此广阔的区域内军队是很难发现他们的。
时间一天一天地在过去，余震也一直都没有停止过，他们的食物就是每天分配给他们的150克大米，钟宜昆将一切记录在了他的日记里，他们甚至看到了苍蝇开始出现在那些死去的人们的尸体上。
时间整整过去了一个礼拜，终于有一名解放军发现了他们，军队特警们翻山越岭带来了粮食，救护队随即赶来救护伤者，但是他们都面对着要翻出大山的困难。钟宜昆提出自己可以留在后方，但是年轻的解放军们坚持要带上他一起走，事实上他们对他说了一句他们最喜欢的电视剧台词“不抛弃，不放弃”。
4小时行进3公里
到处都是山石、废墟，他们花了整整4个小时才走出了3公里。在5月19日的时候，才到达了直升机可以接他们的空旷地带，但是仅仅安排直升机又花费了2天的时间，当最终坐上直升机获救后，钟宜昆还在坚持写他在震中的日记，从开始被困到飞出重围。到了可以收到手机讯号的地带，他立刻按了发送键，远在加拿大的儿子Ryan于是马上在自己的电子邮箱中收到了这个姗姗来迟的消息。
生活在多伦多的钟宜昆32岁的儿子钟敬岷虽然因为父亲一度失去消息而忧心忡忡，但始终抱着坚定的信念，认为父亲一定将会生还。
钟敬岷说，“在我读了父亲写的日记后，我仿佛能看到他们经历的一切，这一切是多么的真实。”
Eyes on Earth’s wrath
Father of T.O. man has ringside seat at Sichuan quake and records an astonishing tale
Wed, June 18, 2008
By THANE BURNETT
CHENGDU — Trapped for 10 days in the Stone Age, chinese engineer Yi Kun Zhong used the only thing he had in his pocket to chronicle his struggle to survive.
From the very centre of last month’s earthquake in the heart of China, he wrote a remarkable diary on his cell phone. And one of the first things he did after he was airlifted back to a shattered but modern civilization, was to press “thin” and transmit it all to his worried son, waiting in Canada.
The journal begins during the eight minutes the country will never forget.
The Chinese government officially began registering the 7.9 magnitude quake at 14:28 on May 12; however, Zhong was standing so close to the quake’s epicentre that he and the other men working at the Loiand Scui Gin power plant felt the mountain shake eight minutes before the rest of the country.
At 66 years old, Zhong is a practical and meticulous man. He makes notes and calculations about most of the important things in his life.
GROUND MOVED
He was planning for a half day at work when he went to inspect a friend’s equipment. He was almost about to leave when the ground beneath their feet began to move. Boulders — some of them five or six tons — broke off from the surrounding mountains and barreled down into the valley.
At the very start, the 28 workers thought the quake would pass quickly. Instead, they had front-row seats to a historic shift in the earth.
The planet was telling them it was pissed off.
“There was a sound coming — a very terrible sound,” he recalls as we sit on the porch at his home in the city of Du Jiang Yan yesterday.
“It was like a train’s voice, from far coming near.”
The sky, growing dark, tried to compete with the chaos in the ground.
Then the wave hit — a wall of pressure, the senior engineer explained.
Everyone sat on the ground, covering their heads from the wrath around them. From their terrified huddle, they watched two nearby mountains move and smash into one another.
A family of peasants who lived in the 150 metres between had no chance at all. They were too slow. The moving mountains were too fast.
“Although the sky is dark, we can see a light … like fire,” Zhong recalls.
The pressure from the ground was causing the area to glow red — as if it were going to open wide and swallow them them all.
The mountains continued to shake off prehistoric dander, filling the ground with rolling rocks. Zhong was hit, along with many others, and injured his back and feet.
The sky began to brighten, but it only gave them a clearer view of the struggle ahead. They were hiding under heavy equipment when the red dust began to hit the ground — almost 23 cm thick and covering everything. Not knowing what record would be left, he took pictures of himself with his cellphone.
By then the tremors were constant — arriving by the thousands to pick at the bones of what the major quake had left behind — and the men soon realized they were trapped. The merging mountains, a river and a blocked roadway had conspired to keep the witnesses where they were.
The power plant was dead, and supplies — other than a few bags of rice they shared with a local farmer — were sparse. But worse, they had no idea what had happened to the outside world.
Then that first night, the rains came. The workers took shelter in a farmer’s pig barn, which stood while mountains fell.
“That night it was so dark we could not see our five fingers in front of our face,” he remembers.
By then he had started his first-hand account on his phone, though no signal could get out to deliver the statement.
They woke up on the second day to more tremors. But the men feared something even worse might be coming their way. Guarding the valley is China’s highest water-dam — a gateway for millions of litres of water. They worried the structure would break and wash them all away. So they looked for higher ground — the healthier carrying the weak.
In the days to follow, they survived on rice soup. But they weren’t prepared to just wait for death to find them. They picked the four strongest men who, with a rope, a knife, some rice and two eggs each, were to climb out of the mountains to the outside world.
“I worried for my family more than I worried about me,” Zhong tells me.
So he wrote a note to his wife and two grown children to say he was still alive and tucked it into the pocket of one of the brave four. Those men would later make it out alive — but barely.
On the third day a farmer had found a broken 20-year-old panda radio which Zhong and the men fixed. The only voice they could hear on it was the official transmission from the Chinese government telling them they were not alone and suffering. But while they heard of troops fanning out across Sichuan province, they knew it would be difficult to find them.
The days rolled by as did the constant tremors. The men ate their daily allotment of 150-grams of rice. Zhong worked on his diary. And they watched the flies gather over dead bodies.
It took a week for the first soldiers to find them — special forces troops carrying rice over the mountains. A medic tended to the wounded, but they all still needed to get out of the mountains. Zhong asked that he be left behind but the young troops insisted on carrying him. In fact, they used a line from a much loved Chinese soap opera — “never give up … never drop off.”
4 HOURS TO MOVE 3 KM
Amid the shifting debris, it took four hours to move a mere 3 km.
By May 19, they had reached a community where they could organize a military helicopter out, but even that would take two more days. When it finally lifted off, Zhong — still writing his diary of life at the centre of the earth — was among the first to fly out. As soon a he was able, he pressed “send” and the amazing account appeared almost instantly in Ryan Zhong’s email folder in Canada.
Zhong’s 32-year-old son, who lives in Toronto, was worried about his missing father but somehow knew he would survive to tell a remarkable tale.
“I couldn’t understand all he went through until I read his words,” says Ryan. “Suddenly it was all very real to me.”
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Burnett_Thane/2008/06/18/5911791-sun.php
附录: 家人亲历的汶川大地震
