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Chinese village of Yangji is being swallowed up by rapidly expanding Guangzhou, China’s third-largest city with a population of over 12 million. The houses in the village are being razed to make room for the urban development of the city.

When the demolition workers moved into her neighborhood, Huang Sufang was convinced her home was safe — it wasn’t marked for removal, after all. But, as the bulldozing continued, a part of her house was mistakenly demolished. The desperate woman mounted a futile last stand, threatening workers with bricks from the rubble of her own home, and finally crumbled in tears. Huang Sufang is just another one of the innocent victims of China’s massive building boom. Her village of Yangji is one of 138 villages marked for demolition to make space for urban sprawl of Guangzhou in the next decade, according to China Daily. More than 1,000 homes in Yangji were destroyed in the process.

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