![]() ![]() More than 84 million viewed the hashtag “Is the Gansu marathon accident natural or man-made?” while 130 million scoured a thread around safety concerns for marathons and cross-county races. Liang had won multiple Chinese ultramarathons in recent years while Huang won the men’s hearing-impaired marathon at the 2019 National Paralympic Games.įury mounted on Chinese social media after the disaster, with many users blaming organizers for poor contingency planning. Victims included elite Chinese long-distance runners Liang Jing and Huang Guanjun, local media reported. The Gansu Meteorological Bureau had warned of “sudden heavy showers, hail, lightning, sudden gale-force winds” and other adverse weather conditions across the province in a report dated Friday. Gansu province is often subject to extreme weather conditions including sandstorms and earthquakes. One told state media as he battled down the mountain he saw many people lying on the ground, some he believed to be dead. Other survivors said insulation blankets provided by organizers were blown to shreds by strong winds. They “described to us people foaming at their mouths, and urged us to quit the race as soon as possible,” she said. Marathon survivor Luo Jing told state broadcaster CCTV she saw runners struggling back down the mountain wearing only T-shirts and shorts. He said when he came round he discovered a shepherd had carried him to a cave, placed him by the fire and wrapped him in a duvet. I wrapped my insulation blanket around me, took out my GPS tracker, pressed the SOS button and lost consciousness.” “My limbs were frozen stiff, and I felt like I was slowly losing control of my body. “The wind was too strong, and I repeatedly fell over,” wrote race participant Zhang Xiaotao in a Weibo post. Survivors gave shocking testimony of events on the rugged mountainside, where unconfirmed meteorological reports to local media said temperatures had plunged to as low as minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit). Provincial authorities have set up an investigation team to look into the cause of the incident, state media reported, as questions swirled over why organizers apparently ignored extreme weather warnings from the city’s Early Warning Information Center in the lead up to the race, which attracted 172 runners.Ĭhina’s top sports body also vowed to tighten safety rules on holding events across the country. The extreme weather struck a high-altitude section of the 100-kilometer (62-mile) race held in the scenic Yellow River Stone Forest in Gansu province Saturday afternoon. An investigation was underway Monday into the deaths of 21 runners during a mountain ultra-marathon in northwest China, as harrowing testimony emerged from survivors who battled to safety through freezing temperatures and bone-chilling winds.
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