Buildings are destroyed by the 2008 earthquake in Yingxiu, Sichuan. [Photo by Zhang Zefeng/China Daily]

"All I wanted to do was kill myself, but as I considered my grandson I began to think straight. No matter what the challenges were, I was determined to raise him to continue the family line."

The family now lives in a three-story house, and that boy is a secondary school student.

"It has been 10 years since the earthquake struck, and I have worked hard every day to bring him up with the hope of a better life," Zhang says.

After the quake, Zhang received compensation of 20,000 yuan for the death of his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. As with other quake survivors, he and his children also received food and 300-yuan individual monthly transitional benefit from the government.

In the second year after the quake, Zhang says, he began spending most of his time on the mountain growing corn, keeping bees and raising chickens.

As the area recovered it was hit by another disaster. On July 10, 2013, a rainstorm swept Sichuan, causing severe floods and landslides affecting more than 800,000 people in Wenchuan county.

Roads and bridges were damaged, and power and telecommunications were cut, and as landslides struck, Zhang's house, barely five years old, collapsed.

Yet again he set out rebuilding his life, and with the help of government disaster relief grants and money borrowed from his nephew he rebuild his house from scratch.

Buildings are destroyed by the 2008 earthquake in Yingxiu, Sichuan. [Photo by Zhang Zefeng/China Daily]