Tourist gets counselling after scare on glass bridge in China

KUALA LUMPUR — A tourist was left hanging on for his dear life after the glass-bottomed bridge he was walking on at a resort in northeast China’s Jilin Province was damaged by a gale.

Chinese portal Xinhua reported that several pieces of deck glass of the 100m-high bridge were blown off by the wind gusting at a speed of up to 150kmh around 12.45pm at the Piyan Mountain in the city of Longjing on Friday (May 7).

Quoting city officials, the portal reported that the tourist managed to crawl to safety at 1.20pm with the intervention of firefighters, police, and forestry and tourism personnel and was later sent to a hospital where he is receiving psychological counselling.

A recording of the incident has since been viewed four million times on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

Glass-bottomed bridges are getting increasingly popular in China’s mountain resorts to attract tourists seeking novelty and adventure.

According to Earth magazine published by the Geological Museum of China, there are at least 60 glass-bottomed bridges that had been or were being built across the country as of late 2016.

In mountainous provinces like Jiangxi, Hunan and Yunnan, glass bridges are particularly common. 

The most famous is at Zhangjiajie, a tourist destination in Hunan, where a 430m-long, 6m-wide bridge hangs between two steep cliffs 300m above the ground.

The Piyan Mountain resort is now closed pending investigations over the incident. MALAY MAIL