Glass Bridge in China Opens Over Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon

A glass bridge in China that opened over the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon is being touted as the "highest and longest" glass-bottomed bridge in the world. It's undoubtedly the scariest.

The bridge is 1,410 feet long (more than three football fields), 20 feet wide and 985 feet  off the ground, said state-run China Network Television.

The structure in Hunan province can hold 800 people and is made of 99 panes of three-layered glass. It was designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan and cost $3.4 million.

CNN said visitors waited for hours to walk on the bridge and its access is currently being limited to 8,000 visitors a day.

Chinese authorities have been touting the bridge's safety features, even allowing a car to drive over it.

A glass bridge cracked at the Yuntai mountain in China's Henan province in 2015, causing concern about such structures, noted Agence France-Presse.

"It's crowded today and a bit of a mess," said Lin Chenglu, who was at the bridge with his colleagues. "But to be suspended 300 meters in the air, it's a unique experience."

Another visitor, Wang Min, told AFP: "I wanted to feel awe-inspired by this bridge. But I'm not afraid – it seems safe."

CNN said a glass skywalk that stretches around a cliff on the Tianmen Mountain, in the same Zhangjiajie park, opened in August.

Dotan told Wired last year that he initially rejected building a bridge across the canyon in the Zhangjiajie National Forest because of the natural beauty of the area.

"Why do you want a bridge? It's too beautiful," Dotan said he told said to engineers when he was first approached about building the bridge. "I told him, 'We can build a bridge but under one condition: I want the bridge to disappear.'"

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