World’s longest glass bridge in China attracts too many visitors – and shuts for maintenance after 13 days

The world’s longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge in China’s scenic Zhangjiajie mountains has closed only 13 days after its opening – after attracting too many visitors.

Local government officials said the closure was because maintenance was needed on the 430-metre-long, 6-metre wide bridge, hanging 300 metres above the ground in Hunan province, after the trial opening ended on Friday.

Visitors to the bridge in the cloud-shrouded mountain region that reportedly inspired the landscapes in James Cameron’s Hollywood film Avatar – were to have been limited to 8,000 per day. But more than 10,000 people were going each day, Xinhua said.

It has not been decided when to reopen the bridge, paved with 99 panels of three-layer transparent glass, which links two different mountains. But Xinhua said the site would continue to be open only to visits by groups of tourists that had made bookings before the announcement of the closure.

However, the decision to suspend its opening to the general public has raised doubts among social media users about the bridge’s safety and also the government’s ability to manage such an attraction.

“There were so many people [in the area] a few minutes after we stepped on the bridge that staff asked us to hurry up and move on and leave the bridge,” one tourist, who visited a week ago, wrote on Weibo.