Yang's amazing splash in the final 25 meter paced him to overtake the lead and out-touched the Spanish by 0.58 seconds.
Yang touched the wall, took off his glasses, gazed at the scoreboard, but still couldn't believe his eyes.
2:18.15! A shocking 3.74-second shave off the previous world mark. Yang waved his only right hand, punched the water and shouted to the roof of the 9000-attendance Water Cube.
"It's the power of unity. It's the teamwork fight. We have the same belief and we deserve the victory," said handless third leg He Junquan, with tears welling up in his bloodshot eyes.
The Water Cube witnessed 11 world records fall throughout the day.
Among them, in the men's 400m freestyle S7, Britain's David Roberts, who qualified for the final in a fastest 5:04.31, took the winning time further down to 4:52.35 and took 1.40 seconds off the former world mark, which stood unchallenged for eight years.
Brazil's Daniel Dias, who won three golds in his past five events, clinched his fourth in men's 200m individual medley SM5 and set a new world mark in 2:52.60, bettering the hosts' favorite He Junquan in 8.32 seconds.
Natalie Du Toit, the South Africa's hero who swam in last month's Olympics, won the women's 200m individual medley SM9 with a record-time of 2:27.83, chopping a further 2.09 seconds off her former mark set in 2005. It was Du Toit's third gold after three-event show and she had two races left.
After five days of competition, the United States led the swimming tally with 13 golds, followed by Britain with seven and Australia with six. Host China stood ninth with three.
The Beijing Paralympic swimming competition has attracted 560 athletes to its 81 men's and 59 women's events. The nine-day contest runs from September 7 to 15.
(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2008)