- 20 minutes ago
172 elite runners. By sunrise, 21 of them will somehow be dead.
This didn't come out of nowhere. And by the time this story's over, five men will be sitting in a prison cell in China because of what happens in the next hour.
----------------------------------------
Watch More:
The Terrifying Final Climb of The World's Best Climber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-Sxq-4D5I&t=804s
The Deadly Race To Conquer K2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWkzbKyLbL0&t=1794s
----------------------------------------
More eXtreme Stories - Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheExtreme-Edge
For business inquiries only - extremeedgeinfo@gmail.com
Voiceover: https://jessegvoiceactor.com/
This didn't come out of nowhere. And by the time this story's over, five men will be sitting in a prison cell in China because of what happens in the next hour.
----------------------------------------
Watch More:
The Terrifying Final Climb of The World's Best Climber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-Sxq-4D5I&t=804s
The Deadly Race To Conquer K2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWkzbKyLbL0&t=1794s
----------------------------------------
More eXtreme Stories - Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheExtreme-Edge
For business inquiries only - extremeedgeinfo@gmail.com
Voiceover: https://jessegvoiceactor.com/
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00172 elite runners. By sunrise, 21 of them will somehow be dead.
00:07It's May 22nd, 2021, 108pm. The mountains of China.
00:12Normal mountain ultramarathon that's about to become the deadliest disaster in the history of running.
00:19This didn't come out of nowhere, and by the time this story's over,
00:23five men will be sitting in a prison cell because of what happens in the next hour.
00:27Welcome to the extreme edge, where the stakes are high, but nobody's just a headline.
00:34So, why did 172 runners from all across China gather to run in the desolate Yellow River Stone Forest?
00:42The answer, as always, is money.
00:45A guaranteed payout of 1600 yen, about 250 bucks,
00:50to anyone who crossed the 62 mile line within 20 hours, even crawling.
00:54That might not sound like a lot to you, but for Liang Jing, a former dairy company employee turned pro
01:01-runner,
01:02that money was everything.
01:04His wife and a three-year-old daughter at home desperately needed it.
01:08In a few hours, he'd be crawling through freezing mud, fighting to get it to them.
01:13Let's go back to the morning of the run, May 22nd, 2021.
01:19The 172 runners lined up on a summer morning in tank tops and running shorts,
01:25to start what they thought would be the easiest money they ever made.
01:29Now, to me, and maybe you, 62 miles sounds like a nightmare,
01:34but to professional mountain runners, this specific route was normal, almost boring, in fact.
01:40For China's semi-professional trail circuit of elite runners,
01:45getting paid for finishing a race like this in 20 hours was basically free money.
01:50None of that would matter in two hours.
01:53Liang had won this race before in 2018 and 2019.
01:57Even though he knew there were no technical climbing sections or dangerous ridges to navigate,
02:02and the elevation over the entire route was less than 10,000 feet,
02:07Liang also knew the major threat out here was the heat.
02:10The previous editions of this race had reportedly soared to a blistering 95 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:16and had all been run under a punishing long, dirt foot race through a dry,
02:21hot canyon made of these huge sandstone pillars.
02:25And because heatstroke was such a severe danger,
02:28the organizers made a seemingly smart decision the night before the race.
02:33They told the runners they could drop off their warm, nighttime gear at the starting line.
02:38The staff would drive it 62 miles ahead to checkpoint 6,
02:42so the athletes wouldn't have to carry heavy, suffocating packs in the blistering heat.
02:47It made perfect sense the night before, but that morning of May 22, 2021,
02:52as they lined up to start, a few of them looked up at the sky and felt a flicker of
02:57unease.
02:58This was supposed to be the hot, dry canyon they trained for.
03:02That should mean a yellow sun and clear skies.
03:05But the sky over their heads wasn't looking like that.
03:09It was looking a little gray, like the day hadn't made a decision on whether it was going to rain
03:14yet.
03:15A cool breeze was already kicking up dust across the starting corral.
03:19This was the last warning any of them would get.
03:23A few runners shivered in their thin tank tops.
03:27Some of them probably wondered, just for a second,
03:30if handing over their windbreakers the night before had been a mistake.
03:34But running should warm their bodies up, and they're getting their warm gear at checkpoint 6.
03:39They looked over at the race officials, and they weren't saying anything about the weather.
03:44They hadn't issued any warnings over the loudspeakers,
03:47even though the only mandatory piece of survival equipment required for this entire 62-mile race
03:52was a cheap, foil space blanket.
03:56At 9 a.m. on May 22, 2021,
04:003, 2, 1, go.
04:04The starting gun fired, and 172 runners surged forward into the desert.
04:10For the first couple of hours, everything felt completely normal.
04:13The field of runners stretched out across the dry canyon,
04:17and the fastest athletes immediately zoomed to the front to crush the early, flat parts of the trail.
04:24And somewhere in the middle of this massive pack of fast, resilient runners,
04:29focused purely on the ground in front of him,
04:32was a 34-year-old man from a farming family in Sichuan.
04:35He didn't even hear the gun go off because he'd been deaf and mute since he was 18 months old.
04:42His name was Huang Guangzhung, and he was one of China's finest Paralympic athletes.
04:48And before the day was over, his inability to hear anything around him would become one of the most horrifying
04:54details of the entire disaster.
04:57By 10 a.m., the fastest runners here arrived at Checkpoint 1.
05:02In ultramarathon routes like this, you can't carry all your own food and water,
05:07so the checkpoints break up the route.
05:10Think of them as safe zones.
05:12They're usually tents where you can scan your tracker to prove you aren't lost,
05:16grab some water and food,
05:17get a quick check from a doctor,
05:19and keep moving.
05:20The leaders blew right past Checkpoint 1 and kept running.
05:25Forty minutes later, at 10.42 a.m.,
05:27Liangjing and the front of the pack reached Checkpoint 2 at about 4,400 feet,
05:33roughly 15 miles into the race.
05:35And this is the exact moment the story gets dark.
05:39The next stop, Checkpoint 3,
05:41sits on the summit of Mijiaxuan Hill,
05:44five miles from Checkpoint 2.
05:46Straight up, almost 3,000 feet of elevation gain on narrow dirt and loose rock.
05:53And that's where organizers of this edition of the race made a decision
05:56that would later prove deadly.
05:59They decided to leave Checkpoint 3 completely empty.
06:02They didn't put any doctors, water stations, or emergency tents at the top of the mountain.
06:08If a runner had a twisted ankle, got sick, or just suddenly collapsed,
06:12then there was no medical team waiting to help.
06:15Even worse, almost nobody ever needed a signal in a remote, empty stretch of mountain like this,
06:21so no one had ever bothered building a cell tower anywhere close by.
06:26So cell phones didn't work up there.
06:28It was a complete dead zone.
06:30If you got hurt, there was no way to call for help,
06:33and nobody was coming to save you.
06:35But what was about to happen next wasn't something a Checkpoint doctor could deal with on a normal day.
06:42Because right as the fastest runners started climbing that hill,
06:46the weather changed.
06:48Just a degree or two at first.
06:50You wouldn't even have noticed if you weren't already soaked through with sweat from two hours of climbing.
06:55A few runners glanced up, and the sky, which had been a flat, dusty gray all morning,
07:02was moving violently fast now.
07:05Clouds were stacking on top of each other,
07:08rolling in over the ridge like something pouring itself straight onto the mountain.
07:13Then the wind arrived like an angry bull,
07:16slamming straight into anyone or anything in its path.
07:19Runners who had been climbing in relative silence
07:22suddenly had to lean into it just to stay upright.
07:25Dust and grit ripped across the trail and stung their faces.
07:30Loose pieces of clothing snapped violently against their bodies.
07:34The sound of the wind with its 55 mile per hour gusts swallowed everything there.
07:40Then came the first drops of angry rain,
07:42mixed with pellets of hard ice that started smashing into the runners' bare arms and legs like birdshot.
07:49Right here, in the middle of nowhere, and out of nothing,
07:53these runners were trapped at over 7,000 feet wearing summer clothes,
07:57with no shelter, and no way to call for help.
08:01Now, if you took an average everyday person off the street
08:04and dropped them into this exact same storm,
08:07they would be absolutely miserable.
08:09They would be shivering, scared, and in a lot of pain.
08:13But, biologically, they would actually have a much better chance of surviving
08:18than the people on this mountain.
08:20Because the people on this mountain were elite endurance athletes,
08:23and in this freezing storm,
08:25the very things that made them elite were about to end them.
08:29See, when freezing rain hits bare human skin,
08:32the first thing your body does to save your life
08:35is make your muscles involuntarily twitch and shiver
08:38to burn fuel and generate heat.
08:40Think of it like a furnace kicking on inside a freezing house.
08:44But to keep that furnace burning,
08:47your body needs fuel.
08:48Specifically, it needs massive amounts of stored carbohydrates
08:52called glycogen.
08:54But these elite athletes had just sprinted 15 miles up a mountain
08:58at a record-setting pace.
09:00They had already emptied their fuel tanks just getting up the hill.
09:04They literally did not have the energy left inside their muscles to shiver.
09:09So when the freezing rain hit them,
09:12the fuel their body needed to survive this change was empty.
09:16To make matters worse,
09:17because they had been training for years to strip their bodies of excess weight
09:21so they wouldn't overheat during normal races,
09:25they had almost zero body fat to trap body heat inside
09:28and protect their vital organs from the cold.
09:31So now, as the 55-mile-per-hour wind plastered their soaked t-shirts against their skin,
09:37it was the biological equivalent of being dropped into an ice bath.
09:41With zero body fat to protect them,
09:44the freezing wind ripped straight into their vital organs.
09:48Within minutes, it was clear to everyone
09:50they were in serious, serious trouble.
09:53Now, the runners, to their credit,
09:55didn't just immediately freeze.
09:57Some of them scrambled off the trail,
09:59desperately trying to find a break in the wind
10:01by hiding under any boulder they could find.
10:04Others reached into their running packs
10:06and pulled out cheap foil space blankets,
10:09the only mandatory survival gear they had.
10:12But thin space blankets
10:14and 55-mile-per-hour wind
10:16are completely useless.
10:18The wind caught them like sails
10:20and within minutes tore the foil to shreds
10:24or simply ripped them right out of the runners' hands.
10:27With their only physical protection gone,
10:30they started calling for help.
10:32At around 11.50 a.m.,
10:34one of the runners near the front
10:36pressed the SOS button on his GPS tracker.
10:39Other runners a bit lower down the hill,
10:41just within reach of cell service,
10:43started firing SOS messages
10:45straight into the official race WeChat group.
10:48With fingers so numb
10:50they could barely tap the glass,
10:52they dropped their exact GPS coordinates.
10:55They uploaded terrifying, shaky video clips
10:58of the storm,
10:59begging the organizers to cancel the race.
11:02The messages were chilling.
11:03The wind is too strong.
11:06Our thermal blankets have been torn to bits,
11:08one message read.
11:09A few are unconscious
11:11and are foaming at the mouth,
11:12read another.
11:13They hit send,
11:15huddled together against the freezing wet rock,
11:18and prayed that someone down
11:20in the warm command tent in the valley
11:22would see it
11:22and immediately dispatch a rescue team.
11:25But as the minutes ticked by,
11:27nothing happened.
11:29The rescue wasn't coming.
11:31And as they sat trapped
11:33on that exposed ridge,
11:35the cold began attacking
11:36their ability to think.
11:38Some runners became confused.
11:40Instead of turning around
11:41and retreating,
11:42they just kept climbing,
11:44chasing a finish line
11:45they would never reach.
11:47With their only physical protection gone,
11:49you might be asking,
11:50why didn't they just turn around?
11:52The sad reason is that
11:54when freezing blood
11:54starves the brain of oxygen,
11:57logic dies.
11:58And for these runners,
11:59turning around meant
12:00giving up the money
12:01they desperately needed.
12:03One of the runners
12:04was 35-year-old
12:05Cao Pingfei,
12:07who promised to bring back
12:08the prize money
12:09for his daughter's birthday.
12:10And just beside him
12:12was Zhang Fengliang,
12:13a 50-year-old
12:15former rural doctor
12:16who lost her job
12:17and had enrolled in this race
12:19after learning of the payout
12:20because she needed it
12:21to keep her children in school.
12:23They couldn't turn around now,
12:25not yet.
12:26And right in the middle
12:27of this chaos
12:28climbing the steepest,
12:30rockiest section of the hill
12:31was Huang Guangzhong.
12:33He was not dazed or confused.
12:35While other runners
12:37were stumbling aimlessly
12:38off the trail
12:38or staring blankly
12:40into the freezing rain,
12:41Huang was running
12:42with absolute,
12:43laser-focused purpose.
12:45But he wasn't retreating
12:47down the mountain,
12:47he was pushing forward,
12:49higher into the storm.
12:51Now, Huang could definitely
12:52feel the biting cold,
12:54but he couldn't hear
12:55the terrifying,
12:56chaotic roar of the wind
12:57that was panicking
12:58the other runners.
12:59And even worse,
13:00he couldn't hear
13:01their desperate shouts
13:02all around him.
13:04One runner in particular,
13:06fighting his own way
13:07through the storm,
13:08saw Huang running up
13:09and waved his arms frantically
13:11while shouting in Huang's ear
13:13that it was a death trap
13:14and to get off the mountain.
13:16But Huang just gave
13:17a strained gesture
13:18and kept climbing.
13:19He was relying purely
13:21on his training
13:22that says,
13:23When you are in trouble
13:24in a sanctioned
13:25ultramarathon,
13:26you do not run back.
13:29You push forward
13:30to the nearest checkpoint
13:31where the emergency tents
13:33and warm blankets
13:34are supposed to be.
13:35So Huang kept going.
13:37And by the time
13:39he physically felt
13:40the wind hit him
13:41in full force,
13:42he was already
13:43too high up the mountain.
13:44The cold locked his muscles
13:46and because he was also mute,
13:48he had no voice
13:50to cry out for help.
13:51Huang Guangjun,
13:53a national Paralympic champion,
13:55suffered in complete,
13:57utter silence.
13:58No one heard him
14:00because he had no voice
14:01to give.
14:02And he was one
14:03out of 172 runners
14:05suffering out there
14:07with no warning.
14:08The runners had no idea yet
14:10that there was someone else
14:12on the mountain
14:13who was about to do more
14:14to save their lives
14:15than the entire
14:16organizing committee combined.
14:17But even his incredible heroism
14:20wouldn't be enough
14:21to prevent this tragedy.
14:22But wait a minute,
14:24how did it actually
14:25get to this point?
14:26How do desperate SOS messages
14:28with exact GPS coordinates
14:30just get ignored?
14:32How does a massive
14:33freezing storm
14:35trap 172 elite athletes
14:38on a mountain
14:38with absolutely zero warning?
14:41What was actually
14:42going on here?
14:43The answer
14:44is going to make
14:45your blood boil.
14:46While Huang Guangjun,
14:48Liang Jing,
14:49and 20 other people
14:50were fighting
14:51for their lives
14:51on that rock,
14:53the race organizers
14:54from a company
14:55called Gansu
14:55Shenzhen Sports
14:56were sitting safely
14:58down in the valley
14:59inside a warm command tent.
15:01They knew the runners
15:02up there were in trouble.
15:04They knew
15:05this was the worst scenario.
15:07They just had no idea
15:08what to do.
15:09See,
15:10this whole race
15:11was being organized
15:12by the local government
15:13of Beijing City
15:14and Jingtai County
15:15to boost tourism
15:16and revenue.
15:17That was the whole point.
15:19The county had
15:19nothing else going for it.
15:21But organizing
15:22a massive 62-mile
15:24mountain race
15:25is obviously
15:26a logistical nightmare.
15:29So the government
15:30delegated the actual
15:31day-to-day operation
15:32of the event
15:33to a private contractor
15:35called Gansu
15:36Shenzhen Sports.
15:37Now,
15:38I'm no supply chain general,
15:40but when you're
15:41putting the lives
15:41of 172 elite athletes
15:43on the line
15:44in an unpredictable
15:46high-altitude
15:47mountain range,
15:48you'd at least expect
15:50the people in charge
15:50to be hardcore experts
15:52or at least
15:53an adventure company,
15:54someone who knows
15:55something about running
15:56and emergency
15:57contingency plans.
15:59These guys
16:00weren't that
16:01not even close.
16:02This wasn't even
16:04a sports team.
16:05The owners
16:05had built their business
16:06printing flyers
16:07and catering events.
16:08They also didn't even
16:09have the staff
16:10needed for this
16:11undertaking.
16:12To put an exact
16:13number on that,
16:14Shenzhen had 12
16:15employees total
16:16for the entire
16:17company.
16:1811 of them
16:19were assigned
16:19to actually run
16:20this race,
16:21which meant
16:22those 11 people
16:23had to split
16:2343 separate
16:25operational jobs
16:26between them.
16:27In fact,
16:28on race day,
16:29one person,
16:30just one person
16:31alone,
16:32was personally
16:33responsible for
16:34nine of those roles.
16:35So a company
16:36that had never run
16:37anything more
16:38dangerous than
16:38a birthday party
16:39was now the only
16:41thing standing
16:41between 172 people
16:43and a mountain,
16:45and they were
16:46understaffed.
16:47Oh,
16:47and it gets worse.
16:49After landing
16:49the contract,
16:50Gansu cut corners
16:52everywhere.
16:53They obviously
16:54didn't hire enough
16:54staff or put
16:55medical tents on
16:56the hardest parts
16:57of the mountain,
16:57and they didn't
16:58make survival gear
16:59compulsory except
17:00those foil blankets,
17:02the barest minimum
17:03requirement,
17:03all in a bid
17:05not to scare
17:05anyone away.
17:06The entire event
17:08was a ticking
17:08time bomb
17:09of institutional
17:10negligence,
17:11done to please
17:12local government
17:13officials who
17:14were banking on
17:15this race to
17:15boost the local
17:16economy.
17:17And for
17:18Xingtai County
17:19Party Secretary
17:20Li Zhubi in
17:21particular,
17:21this race meant
17:23even more.
17:24This race was
17:25his signature
17:26project.
17:27He'd personally
17:28championed it
17:29since 2018,
17:30flown to Beijing
17:31to pitch it as
17:32poverty alleviation
17:33showcase.
17:34This was the
17:35thing his entire
17:36career was going
17:37to be remembered
17:38for.
17:39It could not be
17:40allowed to fail.
17:42Career-defining for
17:43him, life-ending
17:45for them.
17:46So, when those
17:47desperate SOS
17:48messages and
17:49photos flooded the
17:50WeChat group right
17:51around noon,
17:52organizers didn't
17:53call the local
17:53police, the fire
17:55department, or
17:56professional rescue
17:57teams.
17:58That would mean the
17:59race was over.
18:00Instead, Gansu
18:02called the Yellow
18:02Riverstone Forest
18:03Administration, who
18:05then called the
18:06mayor of the
18:07county for rescue, who
18:08then gave a handful
18:09of his own local
18:10villagers flashlights,
18:12raincoats, and
18:13basic instructions, and
18:15told them to hike up
18:16the mountain, find the
18:17runners, and provide
18:18the runners with
18:19winter supplies.
18:21It was an absolute
18:22joke.
18:23These villagers had
18:24no idea how serious
18:25the situation was, and
18:27the race organizers
18:28couldn't even figure
18:29out where they had
18:30to go.
18:31Even worse, at 9.50
18:33pm the night before
18:35the race, both the
18:36local meteorological
18:37center and the
18:38provincial weather
18:39center sent a highly
18:40detailed, urgent
18:42bulletin straight to
18:43Gansu, Shenzhen
18:44sports, specifically
18:46warning them of a
18:47massive storm front
18:48from Mongolia that
18:50was moving right
18:50there.
18:51The report especially
18:53pointed out that
18:54sudden heavy showers,
18:55hail, lightning, and
18:57gale force winds could
18:58land right in the
18:59middle of their race
19:00course sometime
19:01tomorrow.
19:02Now, the organizers
19:03could have canceled,
19:04that's the right
19:05decision, but it
19:06meant losing face,
19:07refunding money, and
19:09angering local
19:09government officials who
19:10wanted a successful
19:11event, or they could
19:13ignore the weather
19:13report, keep quiet, and
19:15hope the runners would
19:16just tough it out.
19:18They chose to ignore
19:19it.
19:20Not one line of the
19:21race plan changed that
19:22night, not one rule
19:24got updated.
19:25In fact, this was the
19:26exact same night
19:27night, they told the
19:28runners it was
19:29perfectly fine to leave
19:30their thermal jackets at
19:31the starting line.
19:32So how do you tell
19:33this group you promised
19:34a safe, world-class race
19:37that a freezing,
19:38life-threatening storm is
19:39heading straight for
19:40them?
19:40You just can't.
19:41It wasn't until after
19:422pm that the organizers
19:44finally realized their
19:46employees couldn't
19:47quietly fix the mess.
19:48They swallowed their
19:49ego and officially
19:51called real emergency
19:52authorities.
19:53Medical helicopters were
19:55grounded because of the
19:56rough winds.
19:57And because there were
19:58no roads, ambulances and
19:59rescue trucks were useless
20:01at the bottom of the hill.
20:02So hundreds of
20:03firefighters, police, and
20:05paramedics had to
20:06physically hike up that
20:08treacherous 3,000-foot
20:09incline on foot with heavy
20:11stretchers and medical
20:13gear through freezing rain
20:14and slick mud.
20:16And by the time the search
20:17and rescue team finally got
20:18to where the climbers were,
20:20what they saw was absolute
20:23madness.
20:24They found runners lying in
20:26tight fetal positions like
20:27children, desperately hiding
20:29behind tiny, knee-high rocks
20:31that offered absolutely no
20:33protection from the wind.
20:34They found others who had
20:35stumbled off the narrow dirt
20:37path in their hypothermic
20:39confusion and tumbled down
20:40steep, rocky ravines.
20:42They found Huang Guangjun, the
20:45deaf Paralympic champion who
20:47just kept running because he
20:49didn't know what else to do.
20:50frozen on that very trail where
20:53his muscles had eventually
20:54locked up.
20:55They found 50-year-old Zhang
20:57Fenglong still wearing her
20:59cheap pink shoes, lying
21:01awkwardly on the ground, never
21:03to wake again.
21:04And right at the front of the
21:06whole group was the one whom
21:07China called the god of
21:09ultramarathons, Liang Jing,
21:11face down on the dirt path.
21:13When they gently turned him
21:15over, they could see from the
21:17severe, bloody scrapes covering
21:18his hands and his bare knees, that
21:21long after his muscles had
21:22locked up, Liang Jing refused to
21:25quit.
21:25When he could no longer walk, he
21:28dropped to the ground and
21:29literally kept crawling up the
21:31mountain.
21:31He had fought this storm with
21:33every ounce of his legendary
21:35willpower.
21:36It simply wasn't enough.
21:37By the time this massive, state-sponsored
21:40rescue operation swarmed the
21:42mountain that night with their
21:43thermal drones and radar
21:45detectors, they were just
21:46recovering bodies.
21:47The real rescue had already been
21:49done hours earlier by a shepherd
21:51with a dirt cave and a brush
21:52fire.
21:53Because while the officials in the
21:55command tent had just been
21:56staring at unmoving dots on a
21:58screen, this 49-year-old shepherd
22:01was helping them with their jobs
22:03on the mountain.
22:04His name was Jules Kaming, and
22:06because Jules spent his life on
22:08this mountain, herding sheep across
22:10the steep, rocky ridges of
22:12Mijia Shan Hill, he respected it.
22:14He knew how fast the weather
22:16could turn, so he had prepared
22:18for it.
22:19Up near the highest ridge, Jules had
22:22an abandoned, man-made earth cave
22:24carved right into the side of the
22:26mountain, where he kept a stash of
22:28dry branches, some emergency
22:30clothes, and a lighter.
22:32And the moment the sky turned black
22:34and the temperature dropped that
22:36afternoon, Jules just calmly gathered
22:39his sheep and walked into his cave to
22:41wait it out.
22:42But as the wind roared outside, he
22:45heard something else, a human voice.
22:48When he stepped out to see what it
22:49was, it turned out to be a severely
22:52hypothermic runner on the brink of
22:54death, standing paralyzed on the trail.
22:57Jules immediately grabbed him,
22:59dragged him inside the cave, wrapped
23:01him in his own dry coats, and lit a
23:04fire.
23:04For a normal person, saving one life
23:07in a 55-mile-per-hour freezing gale
23:09would make you a hero.
23:10You'd sit by the fire and wait for the
23:13storm to pass.
23:14But, Jules wasn't done.
23:16He realized that if there was one
23:18runner out there, there had to be
23:20more.
23:20So, leaving the warmth of the fire,
23:23this shepherd walked back out into the
23:26death zone.
23:27And over the next two hours, while the
23:29race organizers down in the valley were
23:31still debating whether they'd cancel the
23:33event and send help, Jules Kaming was
23:36out there doing their job for them.
23:38He found another group of runners
23:40stumbling blindly and guided them back
23:43to the cave.
23:43Then he found another runner lying
23:46completely unconscious on the ridge and
23:48carried him through the gale back to his
23:50cave with warm fire.
23:52In total, this one local shepherd with a
23:55lighter and a dirt cave saved six lives
23:58that day.
23:59But by the time the sun rose on May 23rd,
24:02the Yellow River Stone Forest Ultra
24:04Marathon was the deadliest disaster in
24:07the history of trail running.
24:09The tally was finally over.
24:11Out of the 172 elite athletes who
24:14started the race, 21 were gone.
24:1821 of their brightest stars in the
24:20Chinese running community were wiped
24:22out in a single afternoon because of
24:24pure institutional greed.
24:27Now, to be fair, the hammer did come
24:29down hard on the people who let this
24:31happen.
24:32Five executives from Gansu
24:34Shenzhen Sports, the company that
24:37ignored the weather warnings and sat in a
24:39warm tent for two hours while people
24:41died, were convicted of criminal
24:42negligence and sentenced up to five and a
24:45half years in prison.
24:4727 different government officials were
24:49fired, demoted, or slapped with severe
24:52disciplinary actions.
24:53The Chinese government even took the
24:56unprecedented step of immediately
24:58suspending all extreme sports, trail
25:00runs, and ultramarathons across the
25:03entire country to completely rewrite
25:06safety regulations.
25:07In Gansu, 21 people died because those
25:11who were supposed to care ignored the
25:13warning their GPS signals were sending
25:16until it was too late.
25:17Five years later, it's July 2026.
25:21Mountaineering legend Nirmal Persia and nine
25:24climbers were up on Broad Peak when their
25:26GPS stopped broadcasting.
25:29Confused, their support team on the
25:31mountain radioed back home to help track
25:33these climbers.
25:34What those signals showed was the worst
25:37mountaineering disaster in 2026.