On Saturday (May 22), 21 people were killed in the extreme weather that hit the marathon 100km cross-country race at the Yellow River Stone Forest scenic area in Jingtai County, Baiyin City, Gansu Province. The families of the victims have raised a number of questions to the officials, and another surviving participant has posted an article recalling the tragic situation at the time, with many people collapsing along the way and some foaming at the mouth.
The families of the victims raised five points of questioning
Chongqing media “Upstream News” reported that the daughter of one of the participants killed raised five questions to the race organizing committee.
First, knowing that the participant had disappeared, why did not contact the family at the first time, but delayed until the next morning; second, why did not the race sites send more people to guard the site, site deficiencies; third, before the race there should be accurate local weather forecasts, why did not give the participant more survivorship; fourth, as of 6:00 a.m. on May 23, why the organizing committee did not explain the situation at the first time; fifth, the family rushed to the incident There is no specific contact person.
The family of the victim said that it was not until 1 a.m. on May 23 that her mother received a call from the race organizing committee that her father was missing from the marathon. Since then, the family has not heard anything, and she identified her father from a video posted by a user on a social media platform, with his hands already frozen purple.
She said her father had been a long-time runner and had always been in good health, winning several marathons organized in several regions over the years.
Reuters reported that the incident sparked outrage among mainlanders. One netizen said, “Why didn’t the government predict the weather conditions and conduct a risk assessment, this is a completely man-made disaster, where is the contingency plan?”
Survivors: insulation blanket was scraped into pieces, some people froze to foaming at the mouth
A surviving participant posted: “The wind was so fierce that our insulation blankets were torn to pieces by the high winds.” “Some people were unconscious and some were foaming at the mouth.”
The participant, Gao Shuang (known by his screen name “South of the River”), said in a long post that “the weather forecast for the day of May 21 did not predict such extreme weather for the next day.”
He said that when the race started at 9 p.m. on Saturday, the wind had already increased, and before CP2 (the second checkpoint), it started to rain, and “after CP2, that’s when the real trouble came” – the wind wrapped around The rain hit his face, like a dense bullet hit, glasses were glued with rain, eyes could not open under the strong wind and rain, only squinting, vision was seriously affected.
He went on to write that the distance from CP2 to CP3 was 8 kilometers, and the motorcycle could not go up there. CP3 did not provide any supplies, which meant that even if he reached the top, there was no food or water to replenish, and hot water was even more of a delusion, and with the exposed mountain, there was nowhere to rest, and he could not retire from the race here.
Subsequently, his own situation is getting worse and worse, “the whole body has been wet, including shoes and socks are wet, the wind blowing can not stand, very worried about being blown down, the cold more and more unbearable, looking for a relatively sheltered place to pull out the insulation blanket, wrapped in the body, instantly blown away by the wind, nothing useful. There is also the player’s insulation blanket, directly by the wind to shreds”.
At this point, his hands, which were wearing fingerless gloves, were also freezing and losing feeling, and his tongue was cold. He decided to go down the mountain, but the terrain was steep and the rocks were slippery, and he moved down a little, already feeling disoriented.
He said those who withdrew down the mountain saw several runners fall down on the way, some lying motionless on the side of the road, and some already foaming at the mouth.
The survivor, who used to work as an investigative media reporter, said in an interview with Interface News that he had participated in the race with a number of friends and had withdrawn in time, but several other friends were killed or lost.
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