The fire in Karamay on December 8, 1994 was a gut-wrenching event that claimed 323 lives, including 284 schoolchildren. “Let the leaders go first. “Although the deputy mayor at the time denied that anyone had said it, it was unforgettable to the survivors who were there.
The truth seems to fade away in a blur. Still, there are many who will always remember the nearly 300 children whose lives were lost in an instant, and the 132 survivors whose lives were forever changed by the fire.
This is an old manuscript from the Southern Weekend in 2006, and on this special day, I feel even more mixed emotions when I reread it again.
On the evening of December 8, Liu Wanying, a businesswoman in Beijing, called a friend back home in Karamay and asked if there was an official memorial this year. “
“I gave them a bouquet of flowers online,” said Liu Wanying. “Liu Wanying said, “It’s good that the Internet has been available for the past few years, so people finally have a place to remember them. The city still hasn’t built a memorial, though.
They” are the victims of the Karamay fire, which killed 323 people. The fire claimed the lives of 323 people, 284 of whom were children under the age of 18.
At the foot of Genghis Khan Mountain, 8 kilometers west of downtown Karamay, in Section C of the Little West Lake Cemetery, each side of a headstone has a picture of a young face, and underneath the same headstones is engraved the same date – the date “December 8, 1994”. Apart from the Internet, this is the only place to pay tribute to them.
What happened in Karamay, on December 8, 1994, and thereafter?
1
Field, fire and escape
At around 17:40 on December 8, 1994, Zhao Lanxiu, then the vice mayor of Karamay, came from the city government to Friendship Hall. At that time, more than 700 students and teachers had been waiting for more than an hour.
“I also waited for a while before the inspection team came,” said Zhao Lanxiu. “Zhao Lanxiu said.
On December 7, a 25-member delegation from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Education Commission “Compulsory Education and Literacy Assessment and Acceptance Mission” came to Karamay to inspect the work. 16:00 on December 8. In the past few years, the Kramayi Education Commission has organized 15 primary and secondary schools with 15 standard classes and 769 parents and teachers to perform for the inspection team at Friendship Hall.
It all started with the second program “Spring Warms the Heart of a Child”.
She clearly saw sparks like firecrackers falling from a row of pillar lights above the stage screen, but it wasn’t until a tablecloth-sized curtain rolled down with fireballs that she realized there was a fire.
Several leaders of the EC went up to extinguish the fire, and the curtain was pulled up to avoid confusion.
At about 18:10, Bi Jianguo rushed out of Youyi Hall to call the police, while his daughter Bi Yina and her 11 friends were performing on the stage.
The fire on the stage ignited multiple hula hoops hanging in the backdrop, and due to the curtain’s obstruction, the rapidly depleting oxygen created a high-pressure area in the stage area and the curtain expanded like a balloon.
A woman stood in front of the leader’s table, holding a microphone and said, “Don’t be disorderly, sit down, we will sit down. The two boys in the class who were usually quite naughty didn’t listen to her and slipped away, which were the only two children in Jin Soo Min’s class who got away with it.
“Let the leader go first. “Although Zhao Lanxiu face this reporter denied that anyone had said this, but Yang Liu, Jin Su Min and other survivors of the scene have confirmed that there is indeed a female leader said this.
“By the time the students started to sit down, the leadership table was already empty,” said Kim Soomin. “So Min Kim said.
Su Hao (a pseudonym), who was sitting in the back row at the time and had a clear vision, described what he saw in the nick of time, “The leaders were sitting in the first few rows in the middle, and when they told us to sit down and stay put, I saw them slowly spread out to the sides and walk slowly back down the aisle. “
It was in this light that the fire spread rapidly and all the lights went out instantly. Everything was out of control, there was no organization, and people, driven by fear, rushed frantically by instinct to any possible avenue of survival.
The show’s announcer, Zhou Yajing, a 9-year-old girl at the time, recalled later, “In the tunnel, a grandfather pushed us forward and ran, and I knew him, he was the same grandfather I had given flowers to before the show. “
The Friendship Hall has more than 800 seats. This is a picture of the audience before the fire. The leaders were mostly seated in the first two rows, with tables in front of them. It should be noted that they ran the farthest from here to the exit that was several dozen rows behind them. However, all of the local leaders in Karamay ran out, and only a few were burned.
Three of Karamay’s municipal leaders (the Petroleum Administration, the same level as the city government) and 17 members of the Board of Education, with the exception of Lanxiu Zhao, all miraculously escaped in time.
The first group of people managed to escape through the roll-up door at the back of Friendship Hall, but soon the door, which had been open, suddenly fell down, turning Friendship Hall into a completely closed crematorium that resembled a brick kiln, a hall of death filled with wails and screams.
Kim So-min’s voice began to tremble as she recalled this part of the story.
2
Off-site, chaotic rescue
At the same time, the chaos outside the scene was not necessarily better than inside. However, it was confirmed that many people had already called the police at 18:15, otherwise Bi Jianguo would not have had the time to return to the pavilion, even if he did not care about his daughter’s life.
However, it wasn’t until the third fire truck finally brought the fire axe to break the door, and people had already spontaneously used all kinds of tools and desperately chopped at the 10 closed exits around Friendship Hall.
Some people hit the aluminum door with their shoulders. Employees of the design institute across from Friendship Hall ran to the left side of the building and pulled off the wooden door, hoping to save the students, but there was an anti-theft iron door behind it. They lifted the door panel and hit the security door. The lower part of the door was bent, and they wrenched up a steel bar so that people in the cloisters and toilets could get out.
The children climbed on the windows, waving and screaming. The window was too high, and the rescuers were so anxious that some of them carried the door while others stood on it, hitting it with hammers, prying with steel bars, breaking the bars, and pulling the children out.
Time passed in this way.
The two doors that were not pushed down until the scene was cleared were still attached by this unlock when the picture was taken on December 22, 1994. What was made of steel was already so visible that when we close our eyes we can imagine what the flesh and blood of the children and the teachers would have looked like in that purgatory.
Ping Li was rescuing her students when the roll-up door fell and she was hit by the shockwave on the threshold of the door, “I had six or seven kids under my armpits, and I had a lot of feet over my head and body, and I had to try my hardest to alleviate the pressure on the kids by bracing myself on my elbows. “
The roll-up door after the power outage stuck them under the door like a guillotine, but fortunately there were many hands outside the door to pull them out one by one. She counted her students, 12 of them, and said, “Great, they’re all here.
But by the time she got her students to safety, people found her coming back in a 100-meter dash. “It hurts, my pain hurts. My baby’s not out yet! “
She was kicking and smashing doors like crazy, but to no avail ……
Li Ping, a counselor at Karamay No. 1 Elementary School, was 35 years old that year. On December 8, she and another teacher resourcefully and bravely rescued 12 students they had brought to the Friendship Hall from the edge of the flames. She was slightly injured. She wanted to return to the fire to rescue the others, but there was no chance or possibility of that.
The pain was gone. Ever.
3
Recognition, Sad Memories
In fact, the fire only lasted 20 minutes. After that, it was all over.
The identification of the bodies was a sad and emotional scene, and most of the families of each child were old and young and very large. When they entered the morgue in batches, according to their numbers, most of the old people cried a few times before fainting, and then were carried out by hand and foot. The fathers and mothers would hold their dead children in their arms and never let go.
I saw a two-meter-high window without bars, so I tried my best to climb up, but I couldn’t. At that moment, a pair of big hands got stuck under my armpits and lifted me up, and I took my first breath of fresh air. I watched him freeze for a long time, but he didn’t hold on.
One of their tasks was to present a flower salute to the leaders, and most of the 100 children perished. When the bodies of principal Zhang Li and teacher Zhang Yan were carried out, they were holding their children in their arms and could not be separated, and the parents said, “Don’t separate, since they were born together, they will die together. …… “
Her voice choked up for the first time in the interview, “We were all moved by such a young teacher, and in the anatomy room, we fixed her face. “
The first program of the day was choreographed and coached by the teacher in the middle of the picture. Her name is Yan Zhang, a music teacher at Elementary School No. 8, born on October 18, 1965, with a young son. In that tragic fire, 16 innocent young girls under her leadership were all burned to death before they could leave the stage of the show they had just performed on. Zhang Yan also perished in the fire. Her young son, Huang Hao, lost his beloved mother forever on December 8, 1994. His young, beautiful mother was only 29 years old at the time. Compared to her children, Zhang Yan was not young, but she was still in her flowering years when compared to the leaders who were in their late teens.
When she was found after putting out the fire, her head and back were already charred. However, she was nursing a student under both elbows, one of whom had a faintly beating heart. “
The parents of the deceased student said to Meng Cuifen’s portrait at her funeral, “Teacher, you didn’t let your child’s face and body be burned by fire. We are relieved that the child is in your hands at school; I am still relieved that the child goes with you in the underground. “
More than 40 teachers were present at the fire, 18 of whom perished by throwing their flesh and blood into the flames.
This was the state of the front row of the auditorium on the north side before the fire. Judging from the age of the students in the back, the person sitting in the front would have been the principal or a teacher at one of the high schools. A few meters to the left of the teachers was the unlocked emergency door that led to the north corridor. Because of their proximity, they should have noticed that the door was open, and if they hadn’t cared about the students behind them and around them, they would have been able to get themselves out of the fire with a single arrow step, or maybe just a powerful shove. But the final tally reports to the heavens: of the 40 or so faculty and staff who attended the event on December 8, 36 were ultimately killed and almost all of those who survived were injured.
4
“Not all the leaders have escaped.”
After the fire, Lanxiu Zhao and Tianlou Fang were the highest ranking leaders among those sentenced. She was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for neglecting her duties.
What is less known is that Zhao Lanxiu was one of the few leaders who “didn’t go first,” and in her final trial, the court found that she was carried out of the fire after breaking down the door. In the face of disaster, she was a victim first, just like everyone else. However, the extreme face of “leadership” that was forged in the fire made it impossible for her to clear her name.
As the vice mayor in charge of education, I have been working in education for more than 20 years, and I have too much affection for children, so how could I leave them behind and go first? “December 19 this year, at home in Shanghai, Zhao Lanxiu spoke of excitement, with ten fingers are missing the first half of the hands to this reporter,” the 12 years. I have dreams of giving awards to children, many dead and injured children, I can name them all. “
But few people are willing to be the “traitor’s crier”. Shen Honglei, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Media, recalls that when she was asked by the Association of Women Mayors to interview Zhao Lanxiu in 2003, she had a lot of misgivings – on the one hand, this was a person everyone hated, and on the other hand, Zhao Lanxiu’s face was severely burned, which also cast a shadow over Shen, who was an aesthetics major.
This is the final styling move of the first program. According to a friend who knows the situation, the camera ran out of battery after shooting this image. When the cameraman left the scene and rushed to the front hall of the auditorium to change the battery, the fire broke out.
“The first time I met her, Zhao Lanxiu said one thing that touched me at once, she said that even if this is the end, if fate gives her another 100 chances to choose, then 100 times she will still choose to save the child. “Shen Honglei said, when he said this, Zhao Lanxiu’s lips could not open.
The day before the fire, she rushed back to Karamay to participate in the event. When the fire started, Zhao Lanxiu was sitting in the first row.
Zhao Lanxiu stood up and shouted “cut the power”. When she turned around, she saw Bi Jianguo and asked him to call the police immediately, then turned around and jumped on the burning stage, pulling and dragging the students performing “Spring Warmth for Children” down to evacuate them, and then she was knocked down by a wave of fire.
“All I felt was a burning pain in my face, hands and feet, and I lost consciousness after struggling to get up and take two steps. “
Rescue Site
When she woke up, Zhao Lanxiu was already lying on the concrete floor of the hospital corridor, as if she had stepped out of hell, her hands melting like candles dripping with oil, more than 90% of her face charred by the flames, and her mouth and nose seemingly melted together. Only by the strands of hair and the charred corner of her lotus-colored suit could this woman, let alone her identity, be identified. When her turn came and she was asked, “Who are you?”, she struggled to answer in a throaty voice. “I’m Cho Lan Soo. “
The doctor rushed her to the emergency room and called the dean. “After cutting my trachea and suctioning me, it felt like I was in a very deep freezing cellar and I wanted to climb but couldn’t. “
The third grade classroom of the eighth elementary school. The only survivor was the poor girl who did not wear her school uniform as required. When the teachers of the other classes, who were still in the school, saw this lone figure, she asked: “Teacher, where are all the students in my class? When the teachers asked why this student survived, they couldn’t help but hug her and cry …… How was your day, child?
5
The Lives of the Survivors
In addition to the 323 dead, the 12-8 fire left 132 injured and disabled. Among them, the one with the most severe burns is Yang Liu.
Twelve years later, she is the only injured person still in the hospital for treatment.
Zhao Lanxiu always remembered her, “She was the best singer at that time, and she was also beautiful,” she said. Before the age of 13, she was a genius, famous as a young singer in Karamay, and at the age of 10 she was accepted as a special training student at the Central Conservatory of Music; at the age of 13, she was a hero who stayed behind to find three friends and take them away, only to be pounced on by the heat as the last willow to walk. After the age of 13, she was a person who was gradually forgotten.
She had 25 surgeries in less than six months, which made Zhao Lanxiu feel a lot of emotions, “We were treated together at the Shanghai Nine Hospitals, and at that time, she had skin ulcers all over her body and couldn’t wear clothes, so she stood up naked and practiced walking. “
Learning to walk again, learning to write again, learning to read again with burned out eyes, only the original musical talent was not taken away by the fire.
One of the girls she rescued from the fire was her partner, who was preparing to perform a duet, and now that her partner has graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music, many people say that Willow is better than her partner in both looks and voice.
However, Yangliu calmly accepts the reality, “I have nothing to complain about, I just hope that the next operation in Beijing will be successful. “
Kim Soomin, on the other hand, is celebrating a happy event. Just a few months ago, she got married. On the day of her wedding, the makeup artist worked for three to four hours so that her face showed no signs of burns at all. The hand that had been amputated, hidden in the flowers she held in her other hand, was not at all visible in the wedding photos.
She had been admitted to a university in Dalian, but the school was determined to withdraw her application. After that, Jin Su Min went to Xinjiang University. When she first went to university, she was always afraid to go out of the dormitory, and every time she had to fetch food, she was either the first to go or the last to hide.
When she had her photo taken for her second generation ID card, the photographer asked her to show her ears. Jin Su Min flicked her hair and said, “My ears are burnt off, what are you taking pictures of. “
Yangliu and Kim Soomin are two of the strongest children among the survivors, and many more live in isolation. “No one would want to play with me,” said Suho. ” says Suho, who now only occasionally talks to people online.
In 1997, Karamay planned to blow up the Friendship Hall and build the “People’s Square. “The plan was later altered slightly, and the front entrance of Friendship Hall was refurbished and whitewashed. But many citizens protested, and later the plan was modified slightly, and the front door of Friendship Hall was preserved after being renovated and whitewashed, but the rest of the building was still blown up.
The second floor of Friendship Hall was preserved and is now a table tennis training center. The second floor of the Friendship Hall is now a table tennis training base. During school hours, it is again filled with the laughter of children, and everything seems like another world.
The city of my motherland is like a river of stars in the sky, with bright stars one after the other, and the river shines with Karamay, I love Karamay, Karamay loves me. …… “This song, which I didn’t have a chance to sing 12 years ago at Friendship Hall, has been sung often by Willow over the past 12 years. Her scarred face still smiles when she sings it.
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