CHAPTER 463: CHAPTER 461: TRAGIC DESPAIR

After a few abandoned buildings were blasted down, the remaining work became simple.

All that was needed was to clear and level the rubble after the demolition to set up new shelters for disaster victims.

While new shelters were being constructed here at the shelter site, more survivors were also being sent over, and the airship surveying the lake area had completed their mission.

The results weren’t ideal.

"Although the lake area is frozen, the ice surface cracked extensively during the earthquake, and there are numerous crevices of various sizes on the ice. We attempted to land to conduct surveys, but it caused further cracking and partial collapse of the ice surface, making it unsuitable for setting up a shelter." The airship captain reported the situation to the team leader and Chen Xin.

At the command center of the shelter, only Chen Xin and the team leader were present, as the Deputy Mayor was coordinating construction and survivor accommodation at the site of the new shelters.

Hearing the report from the airship captain, Chen Xin wasn’t surprised, but still regrettably said, "What a pity. If we could set up a shelter on the lake surface, we could have relocated all the survivors from the current city there, with enough space to rebuild an entire city."

"Fortunately, we now have a new shelter to use, otherwise this would have been a major issue." The team leader, hearing this news, felt both regretful and relieved.

It was lucky that Chen Xin suggested demolishing the surrounding buildings to clear a space, otherwise they would still be troubled over how to accommodate the large number of survivors.

During this period, over 90% of the shelters in the urban area had been opened, and the surviving survivors were rescued.

Although rescuing the survivors should have been a joyous event, seeing those with vacant expressions and empty eyes at the shelters, akin to people whose spirits were drained, only brought a sense of grief and despair.

This city, before the meteor strike, was a tourist city with a population of over sixty thousand, picturesque and with a pleasant climate year-round, hailed as the best city for seeking poetry and distance.

But after the meteor strike, the surviving population of the city dwindled to over fifty thousand, with nearly one-fifth of the population disappearing in the disaster brought by the meteor strike.

The survivors crowded into the narrow shelters, struggling to survive.

Originally, after the country received various technological support from Chen Xin, life gradually improved, and although the post-disaster reconstruction progressed slowly, it was orderly enough.

For the survivors in the shelters, this could be considered a glimmer of hope amidst their predicament.

Who could have predicted that the earthquake would crush this last strand of hope that people held onto?

Although the shelters could no longer accommodate more survivors, the rescue teams fought for a week, rescuing less than two hundred thousand survivors from the rubble, with nearly two-thirds of the population lost in the debris.

Although the rescue teams endeavored to clear the rubble and retrieve and catalog the bodies of the deceased from the shelters, after opening 90% of the shelters, only nineteen thousand bodies were recovered, with many still buried beneath the rubble, unable to be cleared.

These bodies would likely remain unrecovered for a long time.

Clearing a collapsed city takes a long time, as most of the debris collapsed alongside the buildings themselves. Many destroyed shelters were not demolished by the earthquake but crushed by falling debris from upper building levels. The immense debris of tens of thousands of tons makes the cleanup a massive project.

As for those bodies buried under the rubble, if they were lucky enough not to be crushed, they would be preserved in the sub-zero temperatures for possibly decades or even centuries without decaying.

Until the future, when the dust settles, sunlight once again bathes the earth, and the ice and snow melt, these bodies might see daylight again or decay at that time.

Besides the deceased, the living also suffer.

The vast majority of people remain mired in the chaos that the disaster brought, and even though they’ve been rescued, many still haven’t come to their senses.

And that’s still considered better; more people, once stabilized at the shelters, thought first not of other matters, but of those left buried under the rubble who did not survive— their own family members.

There is nothing more painful in the world than parting through life and death. The earthquake inflicted this sorrow of losing family and friends on nearly every individual in this city, plunging the entire city into pain and despair.

Both Chen Xin and the team leader, as well as the Deputy Mayor, understood this situation. However, at this moment, with the survivor accommodation work unfinished, how could they find the effort to reignite people’s hope in life?

Even Chen Xin couldn’t think of a good solution in this situation.

For Chen Xin, this was his second experience of an entire city falling into disaster.

Last time in Lin City, with his efforts and the country’s strong support, the situation was eventually turned around. But this time, he found himself at a loss.

The destruction situation was different between two cities. Lin City was merely buried in snow, with the healthcare system collapsing under the surge of patients, causing the entire city to shut down, but the basic infrastructure wasn’t damaged.

Disaster relief merely involved solving the primary issue, clearing the way for a quick recovery.

But this city was entirely different, and far worse than Lin City.

Almost all shelters in the city area were unusable, with most completely collapsed, and the ones not collapsed suffered varying degrees of damage. The stored supplies were severely damaged, industrial and agricultural production capacities utterly destroyed, a large population lost, and surviving survivors mentally shattered...

This overwhelming number of problems weighed on this city, leaving people unable to find starting points even if they wanted to solve them.

Every issue urgently needed resolution, yet none were easy to resolve.

Disaster survivors need new places for habitation; shelters can only provide temporary accommodation. Survivors suffering from shortages of clothing and food need more supplies for survival, and relying on ark transport is a mere drop in the bucket. With diminished industrial and agricultural capacities, even reconstruction efforts require reopening rail shipping routes to bring in raw materials and equipment; the loss of population...

Only by addressing these issues can the survivors, who narrowly escaped the debris, rekindle their hope for life.

Otherwise, merely surviving would be difficult, let alone hoping.

Perhaps for ordinary survivors, these issues don’t need their immediate attention. It’s more about quickly settling down and continuing to search for any remaining survivors in the city. But for leaders like Chen Xin, the team leader, and the Deputy Mayor, these issues must begin to be considered.

And to solve these problems, undoubtedly the best way would be to rebuild a new city.