Witness of cross-country running in Baiyin Mountain： Before the start of running, it was covered with dark clouds and the wind was particularly strong.
Cctv news(Reporter Wang Xiaoying) At 9: 00 am on May 22nd, the 2021 (4th) Yellow River Shilin Mountain Marathon and Rural Revitalization Healthy Run was held in the Yellow River Shilin Scenic Area. However, due to the sudden extreme weather, there were severe weather such as hail, freezing rain and strong wind, and the temperature plummeted, and some participants were unwell and lost their temperature. As of the morning of 23rd, according to the emergency rescue headquarters of the Yellow River Shilin Mountain Marathon cross-country race, the last person who lost contact in this race has been found, but there is no vital sign, which means that 21 people were killed in this incident.
Contestant: Before the start of the race, the dark clouds were very windy.
According to the information released by the organizer, the event is divided into three groups: healthy running, 21 km cross-country race and 100 km cross-country race. According to the information released by the organizer, the number of participants in the competition is close to 10 thousand. Among them, 172 people participated in the 100 km cross-country race.
A runner who has participated in the marathon many times told reporters that this time she only participated in the healthy run. The wind was particularly strong before the race, and the dark clouds were very scared. Some people at the scene only wore short-sleeved shorts. After hiking for several kilometers, she felt too cold and returned.
Site map released by running friends
Another runner who participated in the cross-country running, "Wandering in the South", also confirmed this point: on the morning of the match day, it was sunny and sunny. At the moment of going down to car ferry, the sky turned cloudy, and then the wind started, and the somatosensory temperature dropped instantly. Taking part in the 100-kilometer cross-country race, the athlete ran two kilometers to warm up before shooting, which is something that has never happened before. What’s more troublesome is that he didn’t get hot after running these two kilometers.
At noon, there was sudden hail, freezing rain and strong wind. The runner was soaked to the skin, found a relatively sheltered place, took out a thermal blanket, wrapped it in his body, and was blown away by the wind in an instant. A contestant’s insulation blanket was directly shredded by the strong wind. Wearing gloves, ten fingers felt nothing, so he decided to quit the race and go down the mountain. On the way down the mountain, he judged that he had lost his temperature.
According to the information released by the rescue headquarters, at about 1 noon that day, the high-altitude stage of the 100-kilometer cross-country race was 20 kilometers — 31 kilometers away, affected by sudden extreme weather, severe weather such as hail, freezing rain and strong wind occurred in the local area, and the temperature plummeted. The contestants felt unwell and lost temperature, and some of them lost contact. Then the local authorities stopped the competition and organized various forces to search and rescue the lost personnel.
Multi-forces involved in rescue and rescue: it is difficult to search and rescue on the track.
After stopping the competition, local organizations such as firefighting, armed police, public security, Blue Sky Rescue Team and Gansu Ark Rescue Team participated in the search and rescue.
Li Yuanhui, detachment leader of Baiyin Fire Rescue Detachment, told the reporter that the first batch of 25 rescuers arrived at the scene at 5 pm on the 22nd to start search and rescue, and he arrived with reinforcements at 8 pm.
Night search and rescue
"The biggest difficulty in search and rescue is that the road is not easy to walk. Some cars can’t get in, so they can only walk. Some roads have no signal, so they are contacted by satellite phone." Li Yuanhui told reporters that the search and rescue roads are mainly from CP2 to CP4, and the stage is about 14 kilometers, which belongs to the more difficult part of the whole track. The situation is more complicated.
Due to the complex terrain and landforms in the stage, and the temperature dropping again at night, the search and rescue is more difficult.
"In the end, we entered the track from CP2 and CP4 respectively, and the two search and rescue teams walked in opposite directions, looking for the victims one by one." Rescuers searched and rescued twice, and finally found 21 victims by combining the list of lost persons and the location of mobile phone signals.
Tournament roadmap
The reporter noted that the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area is located in the transition zone between the Loess Plateau and Tengger Desert, and the terrain is generally high in the southwest and northeast and low in the middle. Mi Jiashan and Songshan in the north-central, Hunan Mountain and Songjialiang Mountain in the south belong to the residual veins of Qilian Mountain. The route of the 100-kilometer cross-country race in this competition is the entrance of the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area (starting point) — Baozigou Square — Observation deck — Changsheng village — Zhujiayao — Fujiaxian — Jinping village — Qijiaquan — Baozigou Square (end point).
According to Li Yuanhui, the 21st victim’s sight was hidden because he fell off the cliff, so he needed to get close to see it, which led to the search and rescue at night and was not found until the daytime search and rescue on the 23rd.
Gansu has set up an accident investigation team.
For this competition, the reporter interviewed Mr. Zhu, who specializes in organizing cross-country competitions in China. He told the reporter that it is necessary to organize cross-country competitions, communication security, medical security and emergency plans. In terms of communication guarantee, especially in the case of poor mountain signal, the organizing Committee will set up a radio relay station, and the walkie-talkie is mandatory for each player to carry, so as to ensure that the players can communicate throughout the track. On the other hand, plans for extreme weather must be made.
On May 23rd, the rescue headquarters held a press conference to announce the latest situation of search and rescue. Zhang Xuchen, Mayor of Baiyin City, said that the incident was a public safety incident due to sudden change of local weather, and the provincial party committee and government had set up an incident investigation team to further investigate the cause of the incident. Zhang Xuchen said: "As the organizer of the event, we feel deeply guilty and self-reproach, and express our deep condolences to the victims and express our deep condolences to the families of the victims and the injured."