Chapter 146 - Disaster
Chapter 146: Disaster
“Ah—”
The people inside saw one of the kids being smashed into the door by the force of the flood. There was a thump, and blood splashed everywhere. It was a gory scene.
The water had dropped for a thousand meters, and the momentum was beyond imagination. There was no time to save the teenagers. The flood rushed right into the shelter before the people inside could react.
The force pushed people away like a powerful water cannon. No one could withstand that kind of impact. They were swept off their feet. Some of them were even pushed ten meters off the ground.
Nothing could save them. Even if they weren’t drowned, the fall would still kill them.
There were at least ten thousand people in Zone 407, and most of them were in a state of shock. They were still perplexed by the siren and had no idea what was happening.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know! Why has the alarm gone off?”
“Is it a false alarm?”
“It can’t be! Why would there be a false alarm?”
“What do you think? It can’t be because the flood has gotten in! Our IVE Extractors are very effective, and the whole world wants them. No water can get in!”
“Look! The flood has gotten in!”
“That’s not funny!”
“I’m not trying to be! Run!”
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Someone spotted the gushing water and was scared out of their wits. Everybody started running. However, they had nowhere to go.
To make it worse, the underground shelter was built into different levels. Zones 401 to 450 were on the topmost level.
The second level contained Zones 351 to 400.
The third level contained Zones 301 to 350.
Once the flood was inside, it would flow from one zone to the next and make its way down the levels. Everybody would drown. One zone contained ten to twenty thousand people, and fifty zones had around a million people.
This underground shelter had ten levels, containing around ten million people.
What Sammy and the others did could get all ten million people killed. Their loved ones were among those people as well.
There were several underground shelters beneath the Pegasus Grassland, and they were all connected. Every level had a corridor that led to other shelters.
Right now, they needed to evacuate this shelter and move the people to the nearby shelters. However, doing so would risk getting other shelters flooded as well.
“What on earth is going on?”
“Help! Help me!”
“Dad…”
“Mom! Please help my mom!”
“My son! My son…”
Sammy’s father grabbed his son’s hand while hanging onto the wall. The water was up to his neck, and the floor was over ten meters below his feet. If he let go, he would sink and get drowned.
“Dad… Dad…”
Sammy held onto his father’s hand. “Why is this happening? Why? Where’s Mom?”
His father snapped back, “Why did you run out of the shelter? Your mom has been washed away!”
Sammy’s face was covered with horror. “I didn’t know this would happen… I didn’t know…”
“Shut up! I can’t hold on for much longer…”
“No! Dad, don’t give up!”
...
“What’s going on?” Led by Eason, members of the three divisions soon arrived at Zone 407.
The operator in the monitor room was ashen-faced. He saw how many people had drowned and how many were still in the water. Some were already dead, while others were crying for help.
It was such a sad scene.
“A few kids opened the gate…”
Eason had heard enough. “People of the Himmelian Pavilion, stop the water and help the people! Quickly!”
“Yes, sir!”
The Himmelian Pavilion had excellent swimmers, and they immediately went into action. Although members of the other two divisions weren’t as good in the water, they were still capable cultivators and could survive in the rapid current.
They gathered enough life jackets, buoys, and lifeboats in a minute. One minute might sound like a very short time, but it was long enough to get hundreds of people killed.
“Stop the flood first! Take twenty people with you. I don’t care what you do, but you must block the gate!”
“Yes, sir!”
Members of the Himmelian Pavilion dove into the water and swam against the current to the gate, where they stacked the sandbags. However, that did nothing to stop the water. The current was so rapid that sandbags were washed away as soon as they were set down.
Blocking the door was an arduous task.
Meanwhile, the people outside also received the information. Phoebe led her people out and jumped into the water. They swam toward the exit of Zone 407, trying to block it from outside.
“Use the air valve and iron plates! Get me a fifty-meter wide iron plate! I don’t care if it’s in one piece! Just do it!”
The exit was also the entrance to Underground shelter No.6. The water had created a strong suction power. Even Phoebe almost couldn’t resist it and almost got sucked in.
The exit was forty meters high and forty meters wide. The opening was big enough to create a whirlpool.
Half of the Pegasus Grassland had turned into a sea, and over half of the Moonian land was flooded. Even after the catastrophe, the water would be hard to get rid of. It would take at least a year to get the land back. To restore the infrastructure would take even longer, possibly over a decade.
The catastrophe had set the world back by thirty years at least.
The water was still rushing into the shelter. People on both sides had to work together to stop it.
...
In the Moonian ark, after the emergency procedure implemented by Lyton and Jamie, things were finally stabilized. However, the eighteen holes would remain.
By then, most of the passengers had moved into the lower deck, which was extremely cramped.
The people in the upper deck all sat around the IVE Extractor.