The novelty of feeling like you’re walking on air, floating above precipitous and spectacular chasms has seen a huge number of glass-bottomed bridges spring up across the globe. But today that moment of elation turned to horror for one unlucky man after the bridge he was walking on fell foul to the weather, with several glass panels dropping out of the bridge around him, mid walk.
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The bridge in question, the 330-foot-high (100 meters) span at Piyan Mountain in Longjing City, China, was struck by gale-force gusts of 90+ miles per hour according to the local tourism department. The winds blew out several glass panels and left the unfortunate tourist trapped, clinging on to the frame for dear life for half an hour, until he could be rescued by a combination of brave climbing and the help of local firefighters, police and forestry and tourism personnel.
In the end the man escaped physically unharmed, although he has been sent to hospital for assessment and counselling, according to state media. Videos posted to social media platform Weibo show the man holding onto the bridge surrounded by gaping holes where glass panels used to be, while social media has been alight with startling images.
Glass bridges and other glass-bottomed attractions have become more and more popular at natural and manmade attractions around the world, from the Grand Canyon skywalk to the Void glass box that hangs high over the Aguille du Midi in the French Alps, but nowhere have they seen such an explosion in popularity as China where around 60 have been built since 2016 alone. However, in recent times weather has created concern over the integrity of many with videos showing some swinging wildly in bad winds.
Chinese state media has reported that local governments were preparing guidelines to limit the boom in construction, with strict technical standards and recommendations imposed to stop building them in earthquake zones.
Perhaps the most famous such bridge is in the city of Zhangjiajie northwest of China’s Hunan Province, which hangs a vertigo-inducing 1,000 feet (300 meters) above the ground and stretches for 1,400 feet (430 meters) between two cliff faces. The longest and highest in the world when it launched, it has since been eclipsed by the 1,725-foot-long (526 meters) spanning the Lianjiang River in Guangdong Province, also in China.
Tourists walk on the glass-bottomed bridge at the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon.
The Piyan Mountain resort has been closed pending further investigation.
