Liu Wenwei |Graduate student of the College of Humanities and Development, Northwest A&F University.
Soon after returning home at the end of January, the weather forecast indicated freezing rain and heavy snow in the coming week. At that time, they didn't think about it, and everyone was even happy because they hadn't seen such a big snow for a long time, and every family built snowmen at the door, vying to be ice and snow artists. 
Photographed on February 4, 2023 in a town in southern HunanHowever, with the successive freezing rain and blizzard weather, the snowdrifts have gradually hardened and thickened, which has begun to affect traffic travel, and many people who drive home for the New Year have been blocked on the highway because of the snow, and the Spring Festival has been greatly affected. Traffic accidents in the province have also become more frequent due to snow, and most ordinary people choose to stay at home and wait for the ice and snow to pass. "Recently, most areas of Hubei Province have low temperature, rain, snow and freezing weather, and on February 3, the Provincial Meteorological Bureau launched an emergency response to meteorological disasters; In the coming days, low temperatures, rain, snow and freezing weather will continue. The rain and snow process lasted for a long time, the freezing rain was widespread, and it was the peak period for returning home before the Spring Festival, so the health risk was high. Residents of Hubei Province, as well as people coming to Hubei and passing through Hubei, are hereby reminded to take health protection and cope with the continuous arrival of low temperature, rain, snow and freezing weather. On the afternoon of the second day when the Meteorological Bureau launched the meteorological disaster response, a farmer's market in a city and county in Hubei Province may collapse due to heavy snow. Witnesses said that at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the color steel roof of the vegetable field collapsed, causing many people to be buried, and some people **. According to a merchant, the market has been open for many years, part of it is a first-floor façade of a building, and there is a concentrated area with a color steel roof structure, which is a vegetable sales area, "A large area around the area is full of people who come here to buy vegetables." It was around 3 p.m., which was the normal business time, so there were merchants and grocery buyers who were pressed in. I saw at least two people lying on the ground and not moving, and several ambulances came, it should be someone**. 
The vegetable market where the incident occurred (photo provided by the interviewee) Social ** Some residents reported that other vegetable markets also collapsed. On February 4, the county's Bureau of Commerce issued a safety reminder, saying that due to extreme blizzards, five markets in the city have potential safety hazards, and will be temporarily closed from 10 pm on the 4th, and will reopen after the safety hazards are eliminated. In addition, the county's commerce bureau also reminded everyone that they can go to nearby supermarkets and stores to buy daily necessities. The accident coincided with the collapse of the roof of a large supermarket in another town in the county, threatening the safety of supermarket employees and the general public. However, after the accident in the county in southern Hunan, at 10:15 on the 5th, the roof of a bazaar in a county in Hunan partially collapsed due to snow, and some people were trapped. As of 13 o'clock, the search and rescue work has been completed, and all 14 trapped people have been rescued. A total of 14 people were injured in varying degrees in the accident, and one of them died after rescue efforts failed. According to people familiar with the matter, there has been no collapse accident in previous years, and this year is the first time. When the collapse happened, he heard a "boom", and "many people heard it and came out to see it." He said that there were people selling vegetables under the collapsed greenhouse. After investigation, it was found that the disaster reduction committee of the county in Hunan Province issued a document on the 4th requesting safety inspections of farmers' markets and other places, and timely evacuation of people to prevent collapse and injury. However, despite the issuance of a document to conduct safety inspections on farmers' markets and other places, it still failed to prevent the tragedy from happening, resulting in personnel**. The last time I remember such a heavy snow in Hubei was in 2008, 16 years have passed. Perhaps because it has been too long since I encountered such a severe combination of freezing rain + blizzard extreme weather as this year, the grassroots ** around the country were a little caught off guard when dealing with extreme weather. The collapse of the color steel roof of the vegetable market led to many people being buried, and even made **staff**, whether this kind of thing can be prevented and avoided in advance, the author thinks it is completely possible. First of all, for the early warning and response measures for extreme weather, China has a complete set of emergency plans and early warning systems. After receiving the early warning from the meteorological department, the county should immediately start the emergency plan, conduct a risk assessment of the areas that may have potential safety hazards, and temporarily close the high-risk areas and other measures to ensure the safety of people's lives and property. However, after the weather warning was launched, it obviously did not attract enough attention, and the people did not take into account the danger factor that the load-bearing capacity was completely insufficient to support the roof of the vegetable market in the blizzard, and it was still open the next day for the people to buy and sell vegetables. The action ability of some grassroots ** is not as good as the ability of "editing**", and there are actions to arrange tasks, but they do not respond quickly and manage in a timely manner, which eventually leads to tragedy. Secondly, for the safety management of public places such as vegetable markets, the county should conduct regular safety inspections, especially before the arrival of extreme weather, and strengthen and maintain all kinds of facilities to prevent accidents caused by weather. In the past few days, in addition to the frequent collapse of the roof of the vegetable market, the greenhouses of some large supermarkets and farmers have also been crushed by the heavy snow, which not only threatens the life safety of the people, but also a loss to property. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen the training of market managers so that they have the ability to deal with emergencies. Publicity and education for businesses and residents is also an important part of preventing such incidents. In fact, counties can release weather warning information in a timely manner through various channels, such as social networking, radio, television, etc., to remind the public to take preventive measures. The extreme weather is undoubtedly like a mirror, reflecting many problems at the grassroots level in dealing with these emergencies, and at the same time, it also sounded a wake-up call for the grassroots in various places: if the usual service to the people is too formal, and the energy and time are put on dealing with some "tasks" of the superiors who are out of touch with the masses, they will often ignore the things they really care about, and the people's trust in the people will also decline. At the same time, if ** will only arrange tasks and will not respond quickly to actions, and let inertia grow arbitrarily in grassroots work, then in the long run, the people's grievances will become louder and louder. 2024.2.7