China tourist left clinging to 100m-high bridge after glass panels smash

[muriel_volestrangler]

A man was left stranded on a glass-bottomed suspension bridge in north-eastern China after sudden gale-force winds shattered the transparent panels around him.

The man was on the 100-metre-high bridge at Piyan Mountain in Longjing city, when it was hit by sudden strong weather, the local tourism department said.

Gusts of up to 150km per hour blew out several glass panels, trapping the tourist until he could be rescued by firefighters, police, and forestry and tourism personnel more than half an hour later.

Photos shared on social media showed the man clinging to the side of the bridge, surrounded by gaping holes where the glass panels used to be. State media reports were viewed more than 5.8 million times on China’s microblogging social media platform, Weibo.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/10/china-tourist-bridge-glass-panels-smash-longjing-city

Scary shit.

[HuskyOffset]

1. Bad engineering

Insufficient safety margin in the design.

Fail.

[sdfernando]

2. Glass bottomed bridges, glass bottomed balconies....

whatever could go wrong? Some things should never be constructed.

My fear of heights and my vertigo would preclude me from ever setting foot on one of these...and in this case it is a healthy phobia!

[Renew Deal]

3. The CN Tower has a section with a glass bottom floor

And there were a bunch of kids jumping on it when I went.

[sdfernando]

7. wow...thats plain stupid

Its all fun and games until the glass breaks.

[Renew Deal]

16. It's pretty strong and we haven't heard about anyone falling through.

But I don't want to know how strong.

[getagrip_already]

4. If it was the design engineer, that wind would be called karma......

Now that would be poetic. Unfortunately it was probably just some hapless worker who was out there with windex and a squeegie.

Tourist my southern exposure. That thing would have been swinging badly long before it failed. The only people out there were told to go. jmho of course.

[lark]

5. Ha, my paranoia was correct.

All these really high clear suspension things terrify me and I would never go on them just because of reasons like this. If that had been me, I don't think I could have clung there that long and would have plunged to my death. Funny, heights don't bother me when I'm in a plane, took a 4 seater over the Grand Canyon and it was one of the best things I've ever done - so much fun. However on my own 2 feet, that's a totally different matter because I do not have good balance at all.

[LizBeth]

12. Or driving. I am so bad with heights and never bothered with plane. But standing on a chair

can freak me out. And my people shake their heads as I moved to the NW. My son drove me in at the bad spot and now I can't get out, lol. I think there is one road. I have always been willing to take hours detour to avoid the cliffs. But planes do not bother me.

[lark]

13. Wow, I didn't know this was a thing.

Yep driving in mountains is bad for me on 2 counts -
1 - freak out driving around high bends in the road with nothing below but rocks or water (I'm going to crash and die)
2 - get car sick if there's too many turns or if I'm in the back seat

So basically I don't drive in mountains, just not prudent at all. I love mountains, they are so beautiful, and luckily my husband is great with driving on them.

[LizBeth]

14. I was going to get ovr fear and with kids, drove Silverton Co. All the way up the mountain I chanted

Gonna die gonna die gonna die. I feel like for whatever stupid reason I am going to just gun it and fly off the cliff, so stupid. That was the start of the trip to explore NW to see if I wanted to move here and where to start. Oldest had just got his license so didn't trust him to drive. Very traumatic. Now, he is older and i trust him and just keep head down while he drives.

IF you ever find yourself on one of these roads (That was the milli9on dollar hwy that is like the wort in the US) I put a shirt on my driver window so I could not see the open space and was able to make it off the mountain, but man was it horrible. No more working at getting over fear. I totally embrace it.

[lark]

17. I rode up Mount Tamalpais and made it down too - barely.

That road is so full of switchbacks, it killed me. My friend pulled over (not easy) and I got in the front passenger seat after throwing up and made it down the mountain without throwing up again by hanging my head far out of the window to get the maximum airflow and by only looking down at the roadway. I can't imagine driving it, but the shirt covering the window so you don't see those huge open spaces (to fall into) sounds like it would really help if there was an emergency and I had to drive in those circumstances.

I'm better driving in more open spaces, like Hwy 17 from San Jose to Santa Cruz - I could drive there, no huge cliffs and it's pretty open even though it was definitely a twisty turny road. Turn off Hwy 17 and driving in the mountains kills me because it's enclosed and triggers my motion sickness.

[LizBeth]

19. I google mapped Mount Tamalpais.

That would be the type of road that puts the fear of goodness in me. Beautiful though. I do best google map driving it. This was fun, thanks.

[lark]

21. It was gorgeous for awhile, then just sick stomach and headache and watching the road.

However, at the end of it was the San Rafael Renaissance Faire and a totally great day. Since we didn't leave until it was dark, we went a different way home and my little plan worked splendidly.

[LizBeth]

24. +1

[2naSalit]

6. I have nightmares about bridges...

I would never walk on one of those kind. My parents took us to Fall Creek Falls in TN when I was very young and I realized while on that foot bridge, I was not fond of being on them.

[lark]

18. Wow, I had recurring nightmares about driving up a bridge and the car falling off for years.

When I was a kid I was the passenger, but as I got older sometimes I'd be the driver. I was terrified either way. Funny I quit having that dream decades ago when I came back to live here which is full of bridges.

[2naSalit]

20. I still have them.

When I used to drive semis, it was really bad. I hate driving over the Mackinaw Bridge, the Keokuck Bridge between Iowa and Illinois and one in Philo, Ohio that sits almost on top of the water.

I was going over the Keokuck one day and I was a bit over weight, which is why I was there instead of a different route so I'd miss the scales. Well there was another heavy truckload of dirt coming from the other side and we had that bridge bobbing from the situation, it was a bridge that needed to be shut down but it was still functioning an open to trucks back then.

I never tried that route again, at least not while overweight.

[lark]

22. Oh man, I could not have done your job.

Props to you!

[2naSalit]

23. Not sure if it qualifies as irony but...

I was born in a car on a bridge, a bridge that was way up above the water of the river.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. That sounds like my worst nightmare, (fear of heights).

I wonder if glass is really the ideal material for this type of construction.

[whistler162]

9. Depends on the glass

Corning Gorilla glass and a secure fastening likely very safe. Sugar glass not so much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_glass


https://www.corning.com/gorillaglass/worldwide/en.html

[dalton99a]

11. Wind resistance is the problem. Glass quality is not an issue:

They should replace the bottom with a metal grid:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. Lol. I love those "harnesses" they are wearing

Should be sufficient to flip them over so they get a better view of their impending death on the way down.

[dalton99a]

10. And there are 60 of these bridges in China

Glass-decked bridges are an increasingly popular novelty in China, with at least 60 built since 2016, the outlet reported. Regions have sought to outdo one another with world records.