China Focus: The transformation of Tangshan

Each time a new structure is built in Tangshan, north China, Chang Qing goes to take pictures.

"Each building in Tangshan is a monument. The foundations might be places where people died during the earthquake," he said.

In the early hours of July 28, 1976, one of the deadliest earthquakes of the 20th century razed the city to the ground, killing more than 240,000 people and injuring another 160,000.

Chang, 82, has documented the city's transformation over the past 40 years. Starting this week, he will turn his lens on Tangshan International Horticultural Exposition.

The flower show, the first of its kind in the industrial city, opened on Friday. Over the next six months, visitors will have the opportunity to explore gardens designed by 10 foreign teams and 31 Chinese teams.

The organizers of the expo estimate 10 million people will visit the event between now and Oct. 16.

Xue Shaojiang, with the Expo executive committee office, told Xinhua that the event will "raise Tangshan's profile and give the world a different impression of the city."

Tangshan has worked hard to rebuild itself since that tragic day in 1976.

Chang was there, recording the aftermath with his camera.

"Few buildings survived, and there were bodies, so many bodies. If the dead were laid next to one another, the line would stretch as far as from Tangshan to Beijing," he recalled.

Construction companies in Tangshan could do little, as almost all their equipment was damaged and their workers killed.

Tangshan looked to its neighbors for help, and 120,000 workers were brought in from across Hebei province to help rebuild the broken city.

It was a huge, lengthy project. Chang's family lived in shelter for eight years. Others lived in temporary accommodation for even longer.

"The new city took shape in 1986, ten years after the earthquake," Chang said. "It became a modern city in 1996 and a beautiful one in 2006."

"It is a miracle, watching such a big city rising from the ruins," he said.

He remembered the first tall building, Tangshan Hotel, appearing in 1983. A taller one, with 14 floors, followed in the second year. Then construction exploded. There were too many new buildings there to photograph.

Invisible changes took place too, as Tangshan opened up to the outside world.

In 1985, the Hebei overseas project corporation gained the right to operate abroad, the first company in Tangshan to do so. In 1986, two businesses from Hong Kong invested in Tangshan.

Last year, import and export of Tangshan reached 5.3 billion and 8.5 billion U.S. dollars.

During the Expo, a conference drawing together leaders from China as well as countries and regions in Central and Eastern Europe is scheduled, as well as another with Latin American businesses.

Tangshan is also pursuing green development.

By the end of 2015, it had reduced production capacity by 10.9 million tonnes of iron and 23.6 million tonnes of steel. That year, the number of days with serious pollution was 42 less than in 2013, and PM2.5 dropped by 26.1 percent.

The city's South Lake, a throwback from more than 130 years of coal mining, was a wasteland before a huge cleanup operation was launched in 1996.

It is now a lush, peaceful 28-square-kilometer park, and the venue for the Expo.

Zheng Suying, 60, is a member of the park sanitation team. Not only has the Expo given her a job opportunity, but also broadened her horizons.

"I have never seen anything like this before," she said, pointing at a garden designed by the south China Guangdong team.

In the park, there is a statue of a phoenix. The theme of the Expo this year is "city and nature, a phoenix reborn."

Showing his photographs to Xinhua, Chang Qing said, "I will take pictures of this city as long as I can. They will be my legacy, a valuable way for future generations to understand how the city has become what it is." Endit