A group of giggling schoolgirls put away their smart phones to pick up sledgehammers so they could take whacks at a glass bridge they were standing on. They laughed nervously as cracks formed under their feet. Were they candidates for the Darwin Awards? Participants in a sorority stunt? Rich kids out to vandalize public areas just for kicks? None of the above.
This was an event staged by Chinese government engineers to prove that their glass bridge is not as fragile as it sounds. Apparently, the Xhangjiagje Grand Canyon Bridge, located in China’s Hunan province, can sustain quite a bit of damage without everyone on the bridge plunging down a 300-m chasm.
Shouldn’t someone stop this girl? Chinese officials staged a demo of the toughness of “longest, tallest glass bridge.” (Image courtesy of New China TV.)
The glass did crack with repeated blows,but since there were three layers of glass panels in the bridge deck, everything stayed in place. A spiderweb of cracks on top only meant that the top panel had to be replaced. The deck would still not fail even if two layers were damaged, according to the bridge’s engineers.
The engineers spoke with some certainty. Before they imperiled schoolgirls, construction workers in safety harnesses had been whacking away at the bridge with sledgehammers, too. Then, for good measure, they drove an SUV over the crunching broken glass.
The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge stretches across a 1,200-foot canyon. (Image…
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