A citizen mourns for relatives killed in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in front of the Earthquake Monument in Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, July 28, 2016. (Photo: Xinhua/Zhao Liang)
Standing on the rubble of Tangshan 40 years ago, orphan Zhang Dongyi saw his world collapse, and so did the city in northern China's Hebei Province.
Forty years later, Zhang, 54, is a senior technician with the Tangshan branch of the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (formerly the Tangshan rolling stock plant).
"The past four decades have changed a lot," he said.
"From destruction to prosperity, Tangshan is a miracle."
The year 1976 was tragic for China. Three of its most venerable leaders, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De all died in the year. In the early hours of July 28, one of the deadliest earthquakes of the 20th century razed the city of Tangshan, killing more than 240,000 people and injuring another 160,000.
THE QUAKE
Thursday is the 40th anniversary of the disaster.
Zhang remembered being just a regular naughty boy before the quake, but then everything changed.
"Life was carefree until that day," he said.
Before the quake hit, Zhang was watching a movie, which was about the thoughts of Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong. In Zhaogezhuang village, where he lived, people were noticing that things seemed unusual somehow.
"Water in the wells was muddy, and chickens refused to return their sheds," he said.
"Some of them even flew up into trees." But the villagers didn't realize what was in store for them.
At midnight, he was awaken by a violent shake. Outside his window, he saw lightening and trees being uprooted in strong winds. Zhang fell to the ground.
Before he could get up, his house collapsed. It was 3:42 a.m.. When he was rescued at dawn, he found he had injured his nose; you can still see the scar to this day. His sisters were injured and sent to hospital, while his parents died after the roof collapsed on them.
In Zhaogezhuang, 400 out of a 1,000 villagers died in the quake. The Tangshan rolling stock plant where Zhang's father worked, founded in 1881, was destroyed.
In the disaster Liu Jiang lost his father. The then 20 year-old miner was installing equipment in the mineshaft when he felt tremors that made it difficult for him to stand.
"The first thought that came to my head was war," Liu said.
The earthquake cut off the power supply and disabled elevators. They went back up to ground-level only to find all the buildings surrounding the mine had collapsed.
"Corpses and injured people were everywhere, and the water became red," he said.
Survivors joined in the rescue efforts. Without advanced equipment, they dug out more than 16,000 people with their bare hands.
