July 22, 2021, Gongyi City near Zhengzhou (Photo credit: JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images)
[Look at China July 24, 2021 News]InfloodAfterZhengzhou, One has water, electricity,the InternetPeople are extremely lucky.
Water cuts are the most common. In the supermarket, bulky drinking water was sold out, and the remaining small bottles were also taken away in bags. In the small hotel near the Erqi Pagoda, customers complained around the front desk, “It’s really stinking!” The boss took out the big plastic bucket from under his feet, and pointed to the water-filled pit outside the door, “Fill it with That punch.”
Power outages occurred in large areas of Zhengzhou City, and many old neighborhoods were not immune to aging circuits. A large number of shops along the street are closed and closed. Fresh and fresh businesses that have not closed are selling fish and milk that cannot be refrigerated at a discount, and have turned out spring scales that have not been used for a long time, but the settlement process is often not completed-cash disappeared from life for too long , The bank was still closed due to power outages, and some people even returned to the original stage of “bargaining for goods.”
In a fresh food supermarket by the Qili River, the owner sat worryingly at the door of the store. A middle-aged man walked out of the dark shop with a bag of onions and small winter melons in his hands. After weighing them, the total price was about 20 yuan. .
“You can only pay in cash.”
“Can’t use Alipay?” the customer asked.
“Can you open Alipay?”
Middle-aged men have no cash. After looking for a long time in the black leather bag, he could only hand the boss a pack of cigarettes-the blue package of Xuan Hemen, the market price was about 19 yuan. (This is reminiscent of Germany, where the economy collapsed after World War II, and people regarded storage-stable and easy-to-divide cigarettes as “currency”)
The interruption of water and electricity exists in the memory of generations, but the sudden interruption of the Internet has turned Zhengzhou into an unprecedented testing ground.
After July 20, Zhengzhou seemed to have returned to around 2000 overnight. In this city, there are deserted areas without electricity and internet everywhere.
Near Zhengzhou East Railway Station is a three-no area without water, electricity and internet. The gates at the exit gates of the high-speed rail all failed, and passengers who originally needed to swipe their ID cards or tickets to exit the station were squeezed out of the gates that could not be turned. And when they walk out of the square in front of the station, they will find that the city’s main public transportation has become shared bicycles, fast-going taxis, and freight haulage.
For safety reasons, several major online ride-hailing platforms have suspended their business within Zhengzhou. Most bus lines have also ceased operation. So you will see the passengers pulling the suitcases brazenly stopping the SF Express truck and asking the driver loudly, “Doesn’t you pull people?” And the intersection on the southwest side of the station has become a trading place, acting as a taxi. Arriving empty, there will be passengers immediately surrounding them, “You can pay as much as you want, and don’t use the meter.”
But the driver is not concerned about the price. They always ask, “Do you have cash? WeChat Alipay can’t do it.”
The first three groups of people who came forward to inquire were disappointed and left. Occasionally there are passengers who questioned the driver’s “difficulty to make a fortune”, and the driver did not deliberately make a grievance expression, “I am a new energy car. This is a new energy vehicle and it will be over when the power is over. I don’t know where to recharge. According to a data from Zhengzhou City, more than 80% of taxis in the city have been replaced by new energy vehicles.
At noon on the 21st, hundreds of passengers were stranded at the crossroads in front of the station. Shuttle between crowds, large bags and private cars soaked in water, Kuaigou taxis and freight lesbians occupied the absolute main force. Whether it is Wuling Hongguang or Jinbei, passengers will never dislike it, and even tolerate sitting on strangers’ laps.
After deciding to go to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengda University, I stopped a Kuaigou truck. The driver was a middle-aged man in his 40s. He had a short flat head and looked well-established. But when asked about the one-way price, he suddenly became very shy, “How much do you say?” After some shirks, I realized that he was very new to this new business that had suddenly emerged. He took out his cell phone, “Let me see how far it is on Gaode’s map.” But a minute later, he said, “There is no internet.”
On Dongzhan South Road, a guy with a camouflage backpack tried to scan a Meituan bicycle. After many attempts to no avail, he was already sweating. He raised his phone and made two laps in the air in vain, as if Hesai The African immigrant in the gold medal photography “Signal”, a few minutes later, he slammed two punches at the QR code of the Meituan bicycle.
Nearly a hundred shared bicycles were scattered along Dongzhan South Road. Meituan, Qingju, and Hello were all three of the world. Within half an hour, more than 30 people tried to scan the code, but only two of them caught a weak signal. After a student-like young man successfully scanned the code, he hummed the divine tune in the vibrato, “riding my beloved little bicycle…” More people can only go around looking for Internet products that are more compatible with this failure moment—— Shared bicycles with broken locks.
In such extreme circumstances, newer ones may not mean better. Meituan Bicycles launched a new generation of bicycles in Zhengzhou, abandoning the traditional locks. The new locks probably apply electromagnetic principles. You still need to scan the code when returning the car, and the system determines whether it is located in the designated parking space, but an extra network Correspondence annoys Zhengzhou people at this moment.
On the other hand, some seemingly primitive technologies may come in handy. In the media group before the flood, an emergency guide circulated, which suggested a technology: if you need to ask for help on Weibo, you can directly send the content to 1069009009 without a 4G signal. The Weibo system has left a silver lining through the 2G network.
Just like Zhengzhou, a city in the Central Plains, did not prepare enough for the precipitation of more than 500 millimeters a day, most Internet technology companies have superimposed more and more sophisticated designs on the foundation of network communications, but if you don’t experience it once , Who knows what will happen after the foundation is gone.
Most of the shops along the way are closed, especially large chain institutions such as McDonald’s. Small shops are still open.
“Hello, I made a reservation on Ctrip.” At the small hotel named Yi Lai, I said to the front desk.
“Ctrip?” She pointed to the computer in front of her, “I have no electricity and no internet. Where can I see it after you booked it?” She pressed a paper form under her hand, and each room number was marked with thick lines. Thick horizontal lines. A steady stream of customers came in, and many people walked to the front desk, glanced at the various yellow and green shared power banks, and then turned away.
3 kilometers westward, electricity was restored after passing the green center. In a mutton soup restaurant, the boss told me that I can’t order takeout now. “It’s not that Meituan stopped, and we closed it manually. It’s just that there is no rider to take the order after 40 minutes, and then the customer retires, the meal is already done, and we still have to bear the loss. We simply closed it.”
On the evening of the 21st, Meituan sent a text message, “In order to ensure the convenience of citizens in extreme weather, Meituan bikes will be free to ride in Zhengzhou from the 21st to the 28th, and the fees you paid during the period have been refunded to the original account. Special Reminder, be sure to confirm the road conditions and good visibility before riding, and do not wading through water on the roads with stagnant water. Let the wind and rain together, come on Zhengzhou!
After receiving the text message, I really want to whisper in the ear of Meituan, idiot, the problem is not money at all.
That night, it rained heavily in Zhengzhou again. After 8:30, wearing a raincoat, I rushed from the Provincial People’s Hospital to the hotel near Zhengxing Street. The street lights and traffic lights on Renmin Road were all off, and the view and road conditions were very bad. During the 40-minute walk, I probably encountered more than a dozen shared bicycles along the way, but there was still no internet and I couldn’t scan the code.
I turned on the lighting of my mobile phone and stared at the Gaode map downloaded offline while hurrying. After the flood, AutoNavi launched the rainstorm mutual assistance function. In emergency locations, a red marker will be displayed on the map. But if you are not in an oasis with internet, you have no idea to open it. Friends in Beijing can use it, but they don’t need it.
According to the map information, I walked to the vicinity of Erqi Pagoda. After turning around a fence, I was stopped by a figure.
“Big brother don’t go, there is a big puddle in front of you, you can’t get through.” He looked older than me, but it was too dark at the time.
“Walk over there, you can go there, you look at a puddle, don’t step on it.” He continued.
I thanked him and asked if he was a government worker.
“No. I live nearby and I know there is a big hole here. I thought it would not work. I have been standing here for a while.” He saw the map in my phone, “Don’t just look at that, it doesn’t work now. ”
On the afternoon of the 21st, in a small square near Chengdongnan Road, I met a nearby resident, Brother Zhang. He hadn’t been out for two days and was sitting on the steps to let the wind go. He told me about the difficulties of water and power outages nearby. He talked about the cars floating in the culvert not far away, but at the end he concluded, “Henan people are afraid of what is happening? Great disasters are much more difficult.”
In the past two days, Brother Zhang didn’t dare to use his mobile phone. “Only more than 20% of the electricity is left. But it also saves electricity and has no internet.”
“Then what do you think of the news and government announcements?” I asked.
“It’s all told by my neighbors (neighbors) that there is no need to release the flood. We have a very good relationship.”
Since the flood, most of the city government’s information has been disseminated through the Internet, and there are related news on TV stations, but there is still an old problem, there is no electricity and no Internet. It is probably impossible to estimate how many people are isolated from material information.
Right now, Big Brother Zhang is worrying, worrying that he will not be able to contact his hometown after the phone is dead. He plans to drive back, but he is also worried about unsafe roads.
He is originally from Xuchang and has worked hard in Zhengzhou for many years. The youngest daughter is only 3 years old and has only returned to her hometown twice. “I always want to go back and let the elderly see the children. My wife is afraid of trouble going back, so I always say that we can just watch the WeChat video, it’s the same.”
“How can it be the same?” he said, “it must be different.”
(The article only represents the author’s personal position and opinions)
Responsible editor: Wu ZhienSource: Hardcore story
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