20 Cases of Successful Self-rescue

 16.  Being Mentally Prepared

　　Mr. Jia was a staff in the local post office. He lived in a one-storey house before the earthquake. (XI intensity)

　　When Mr. Jia was still in the army in 1974, he became an amateur worker in earthquake forecasting. Before the earthquake in Tangshan, he found a lot of strange happenings: From July 25 to 26, the readings in his simple earthquake forecast equipment skimmed a lot. The figures were several times of those before. In the afternoon of July 27, the electromagnetic alarm assembled by himself kept giving alarms for the whole afternoon. Besides, he also found the animals had a lot of strange behaviors. On July 27, the rabbits he raised ran away and the chickens also refused to enter their net. Two of the four carps in his fishing jar jumped out time and again. 

　　From July 25 to July 26, the insects gathered under the street lamps became more and more, particularly, mole crickets. Since so many strange phenomena occurred in such a short time, it was quite natural that Mr. Jia started to think of the earthquake. Ever since strange happenings started to appear, Mr. Jia often went to bed after 11 or 12 during the night. Since he took appropriate measures, during the night of the earthquake, Mr. Jia was the first man in his yard that ran out of the house. All his family members were safe and sound. But, among the 50 inhabitants in his yard, more than 20 of them were killed by the earthquake. From then on, Mr. Jia realized that his amateur earthquake observation really benefited himself and others a lot. 

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