A tourist tries to smash the glass panel on a glass-bottom bridge in China (Photo : YouTube / Amazing Amazing)
What better way to test a glass bridge than to try and break it with sledgehammers? That is what exactly what tourists were invited to do at the world's longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge in China.
About 30 visitors were invited to the 430-meter-long glass-bottom bridge in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province in China to test out how sturdy the new bridge is. The tourists were each given a sledgehammer to try and break the glass.
As expected, the glass panels held strong against the sledgehammers which weighed 5.5 kilograms or 12lbs. The glass-bottom's sturdiness also extends to its capacity as it is claimed to be able to support the weight of up to 800 people at once, The Washington Post has learned.
The bridge is colored white which blends well even with the lush green mountains in its surroundings. Overall, it has three layers of glass with each layer 15mm thick. In order to prove the bridge's sturdiness by one step further, a Volvo XC 90 weighing 4409 pounds with 11 passengers inside drove over the glass panels that were hit by the sledgehammers from before.
All of the testing aims to ease the fear of the public after a similar glass-bottomed bridge in Henan cracked in 2015 in just two weeks after it initially opened, Shanghaiist reported. The opening of the bridge spanning the Zhangjiajie's Grand Canyon was initially scheduled to open in May but the constant rainfall pushed it to July.
Park official Chen Zhidong told reporters at that the cracked glass will not break into pieces and that people can still walk on it without crashing down. Another separate test was conducted by the bridge officials wherein 25 people were instructed to jump on the glass panels. The result was that all three layers were cracked but it was not enough to break the bridge itself.
It is unclear whether the cracked glass panel on the bridge will still be replaced before it opens in July. The panel looks really cracked and it could also cause fear for those who wish to walk across the glass-bottom bridge that sits 984 feet above the canyon's ground.
