Chinese glass-bottomed mountain walkway closed after cracks appear less than month after opening
Officials at Henan province’s Yuntaishan scenic area say there was no threat to safety after a single pane of the 120m high skywalk shattered into coin-sized segments on Monday
The glass walkway in Henan province’s Yuntaishan scenic area had been supporting dozens of tourists on Monday when the cracks appeared with a loud bang.
A single pane of the 68 metre-long section shattered into coin-sized segments, footage on state broadcaster CCTV showed.
The area’s management bureau said on its microblog on Thursday that there was no threat to safety because only one of the three layers of glass that make up the walkway was damaged.
Watch: People tour the glass skywalk around China's Yuntai Mountain
It said investigators were looking into the cause of the fissures and added that the walkway was able to support weights of more than 800kg per square metre.
Postings to China’s Twitter-like Weibo messaging service described the fears of tourists who heard the panel crack, but there were no signs of mass panic or injuries.
The structure hugs a cliff side roughly 120 metres above a canyon in the remote mountain areas renowned for its scenery. It opened on September 20, just in time for China’s week-long National Day holiday, which started on October 1..
A glass walkway above London’s Tower Bridge suffered a similar accident in November after a falling bottle shattered the topmost layer of one of its panes that was designed to be easily replaceable if damaged.
Such walkways have grown popular in China as scenic areas compete to attract increasingly affluent Chinese tourists.
The structure stretches 430 metres at a height of 300 metres above the canyon floor.
