Volvo XC90 Crosses Bridge Made of Glass in China

Watch the Chinese Drive a Volvo XC90 Over a Glass Bridge to Prove its Safety

By Seshan Vijayraghvan

1 mins read

Published on June 30, 2016

Highlights

The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon bridge is the world's longest glass bridge
It is 1,411 ft. long and can withstand the weight of 800 people
Volvo XC90 was driven over a patch that was cracked with sledgehammers

As opposed to popular the belief in India, the Chinese do produce some very durable products. In terms of architecture, one of the most recent examples is the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge that has been built over the Zhangjiajie national Park in Hunan province. At 1,411 feet, it is the longest glass bridge in the world and walking over it is not a task for the faint hearted. In a bid to prove how safe the bridge is, the officials of the park recently drove one of the heaviest SUVs - the Volvo XC90 weighing over 2 tonne, over this glass bridge. Now, the numbers aren't official yet, but it is believed that the Chinese got about eleven passengers to sit inside Volvo's humungous SUV when they drove it across the entire bridge. To make things more interesting, the officials decided to give 5.5 kg sledgehammers to 20 people and asked them to try and break the glass before driving the SUV over the bridge. Despite their efforts they only managed to crack the top layer of the glass without causing any considerable damage. Despite this, what truly completed the experiment was driving the SUV, packed with passengers over the cracked bridge to prove its safety. In case you are wondering how, the bridge is made up of three layers of tempered glass and each layer is 0.6-inches (15mm) thick, thus making it very durable. The bridge was designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan and cost the national park by $69 million to build the entire bridge. In fact the people who built it say it's sturdy enough to withstand the equivalent weight of 800 people. Apparently the bridge is still not open for public yet and the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon national park will have the official opening ceremony next month. The reason why the national park's operators are keen to assuage the public's fears of the bridge being unsafe is because of the incident at Yuntai Mountain Geological Park's glass bridge. Apparently back in October 2015, after a tourist dropped a mug on one of the panels on the walkway the glass cracked. People on it noticed the crack and, understandably, started screaming and despite the park officials say that only one of the three layers of glass on the panel broke, it freaked people out enough that the skywalk has been closed since. Operators of Zhangjiajie national Park want to avoid such an incident here and have clearly convinced me. Video Source: Amazing Amazing/Listen to Me (YouTube)