Chapter 262 262: The Night Camp.

Leo and the three guards were all resting behind their bikes after a long ride. Leo made a call to Snow earlier to ask what was going on and showed her and Lily the various sights he saw around him. As they were resting, suddenly Leo sat up from the ground and he looked around as he asked, "Jock, did you sense that?"Jock nodded, the ground was trembling a little. He took out the tab from his top box. He turned it on and after a few minutes, he found something that caused his eyes to open wide. The young man said, "Guys, get up. The village of Gua was hit by an earthquake. We need to get going."

Jock and the rest got up, they knew that they were now going over to give first aid. It just took them a few minutes to mount on and then rode out. They were slow but they were quick. Leo called Anastasia, it was four in the morning.

The lady picked up the call and asked, "Leo, is everything alright?"

Leo replied, "Ma, the Gua Village has been hit by an earthquake of eight on the richter scale. I suspect that their has been a lot of damage. So, can you direct all the rescue and aid for the people. It would take me four hours to reach the place."

His tone was brimming with hurry, and he was saddling while talking because the trail was that bumpy. Anastasia nodded and said, "Alright, give me half an hour, I will direct the resources of the foundation over there on priority basis."

The young man agreed and disconnected the call. This urgency was not without cause, he really cared for the well being of the people stuck in such situations. He couldn't imagine the impact such a drastic event would have on the people's lives. Being a person who has been through the dark place of being helpless, he didn't wish for the others to suffer the same.

...

Anastasia sat up in her room, she was still trying to figure out the meaning of the call. She tied her hair in a bun, and then put on her robe as she walked out of the room and headed to the kitchen. She quickly put in some coffee and picked up her phone to call a subordinate.

The phone rang for a bit before a groggy sound echoed in her ears, "Yes, Ma'am."

Anastasia replied, "I apologize for disturbing you at this hour, Mister Kleson, but can you activate the air carriers? Just now I received the news that a village in the north east was hit by an earthquake, eight on the richter scale. We need to rush in as soon as possible with the food, and medical aid."


The other person was shocked, but then he said, "I will get this done, nothing to worry about. Who shall I send as the leader."

Anastasia replied, "None, Leo is there in person for the time he will hold command and then I will come to handle things as well. Also, pass on the message to all the other charity organizations as well."

Kleson nodded and after a bit the man said, "I will get to work right away, shall we meet at the office? It would be better to coordinate things from there."

Anastasia nodded, and then they all headed to freshen up and run to work. Snow sensed someone moving around the house and she found out what was happening. It was as if a chain reaction was set off, Lily also came out rubbing her eyes, and asked, "What is going on?"

The little girl asked, "What is going on?"

Snow picked her up and said, "Yes, it is fine, do you want to go and help some people?"

Lily was confused as she leaned in closer to Snow's shoulder, "Is someone troubling people?"

Snow smiled and patted the back of her little darling, then she said, "Ma, I would like to use this event to gain some good karma."

Anastasia was surprised with the words and asked, "What do you mean?"

Snow handed Lily to the old lady and said, "I am going to handle a few things and then I will leave with Lily, we will go to the village of Gua."

Anastasia wanted to say something but before she could do anything, Snow vanished upstairs and then found herself sitting before the computer typing an email. She had asked the entire company if they would like to volunteer for the rescue and aid operation set up by the company for the people of the Gua Village.

The volunteers will not receive any bonus or money for this but they will get commendation award from the President. They had one hour after work to response to this.

...

Leo and his team of three rode the best they could for four hours, and they were just a few kilometers away from the village. However, even from this area they could sense the level of destruction caused by the earthquake. The young man sighed and parked his bike on the side, and then he said, "Let's go. We cannot ride any further, we are on foot. Jock, inform Kleson's people. Better coordination will increase the speed and efficiency."

Jock nodded and took out the satellite phone from his pocket and that was it. The trail was covered with debris and so, Leo and his men decided to clear the trail first. The cleared the fallen trees, and found the ways around the ditches that had formed around trail and moved quickly closing in on the village.

After a couple of hours, they reached the gates of the village, and inside they spotted people rushing everywhere to help. It was chaos, utter and absolute chaos. He looked at the side, and found a young child trying to dig through the debris of a fallen house, and he said, "Jock, on me! Khisto, locate the village head or however, is commanding the rescue, move quick."

Khisto nodded and dashed out to ask a few questions while Leo and Jock dashed to the fallen house, Leo looked at the child and then at the wall as he realized that someone was patting the wall from inside.

He looked at Jock, who leaned closer to the wall and spoke loudly, "Stop! Your movement will cause the wall to fall faster. We are trying to rescue you, calm down. Your child is getting worried as well. Please calm down, and listen to me, we will help you. Do you hear me? If you do, tap the wall gently twice."

The two taps came back, and Leo began to use his hands to pick up the big chunks of the debris, and put them to the side. Jock tried his best to follow but Leo was faster and stronger than him by way much.

Within a minute, the debris was cleared and they rescued a woman whose leg seemed to be fractured. Leo held her leg as the woman cried and held her child. He then used the chance of her distraction to quickly set her bone back in place and then took some wood sticks from the debris and made a three bone brace for her.

He said, "Stay here and calm down, we will be back soon."

The lady bowed slightly as she cried and said stammeringly, "Thank you, thank you.'

Her child followed the gesture, but Leo waved his hand and moved to another house. As they moved from one house to the other, they found that the chaos earlier was caused by just a small populace of the people. More than three quarters of the populace including women, children and elders buried under the debris.

There were only one hundred and fifty houses from what Leo understood earlier, but from what Leo heard after Khisto came back, there were four hundred houses now. It seemed to him that the data from the government official was twenty years old.

He took a deep breath and still joined the other people to rescue as many people as they could.

As this was going on, many of the people were recording videos of the destruction and the rescue operations. Just when they were about to finish the recording and join the force, the air echoed with the roars from turning rotors.

Leo raised his head and spotted several choppers coming over. They all have spotted the clear landing space and volunteers from the Butterfly technology began to unboard and dash ahead. However, one thing that Leo noticed was a pair of mother and daughter who came over with this crowd.

Leo sighed and pressed his hand against his forehead. He looked at them walking towards him. He took a deep breath and asked, "What are you two doing here?"

Snow smiled and said, "We came to help. You stay here, I will check the injured, someone needs to focus on the emotional recovery as well."

Leo nodded and he looked at Lily as he asked, "Baby, will you stay with Ma?"

Lily shook her head and said, "I will go and rescue animals with Sister Zee. They also need someone."

That said, the three people divided their work, while the officials from the foundation began to set up tents and form small teams to increase the pace of the rescue.