'It was like an air force bombing a village'

For Zhang Maotang, May 12, 2008, was the day his personal apocalypse began. For almost nine weeks it seemed to him that day after day a relative of his would die, and it plunged him into what he says was madness.

His daughter and her husband were killed by rocks, and a cousin and two nephews died before his eyes.

"It was like an air force bombing a village," he says. "Houses had collapsed and there was rubble everywhere. I looked after my nephew for an hour before he finally died."

His wife, who herded sheep on a mountain, was missing. Even as aftershocks continued to shake the area, he ascended the mountain every day, calling out her name.

"I was fearless, but I had completely lost my mind," he says. "We had been married for more than 40 years and never quarreled or been in fights."

On the 48th day Zhang decided to risk carrying his search further afield, into a valley where rocks continued to fall. Trying to move any rocks that had come to a rest was not only physically difficult, but also highly dangerous. In one spot as he moved rocks around he saw the unmistakable sign of what had once been life: a human foot. Eventually, as he recognized his wife's clothing, he knew his search was over.

"I felt stabbing pains in my chest. I took off my coat, wrapped her up and took her home."

The magnitude-8 earthquake had destroyed Zhang's home, too, leaving him with 2 cows and 12 sheep.

His meager consolation was that his grandson had survived, and many people, including Xie Chunying, director-general of Luhuo County Health Bureau, tried to persuade him to adopt his orphaned grandson. He refused.