A glass walkway at London's Tower Bridge shattered Friday when a worker dropped a bottle of beer, but while it looked scary, the structure was still safe.
The see-through walkway, which stretches 140 feet above the River Thames, opened to the public on Nov. 10, and offers visitors a unique perspective of traffic crossing the river and bridge lifts.
"A sacrificial layer of glass on the new West Walkway at Tower Bridge Exhibition shattered on Friday evening, when an empty beer bottle fell from a tray being carried by a member of the catering team during an event,"
Tower Bridge Marketing Member Chris Earlie told The Guardian. "The floor was immediately inspected and covered to protect guests from glass splinters."
The falling bottle caused the initial crack, but the situation worsened when a
woman walked over the area in stiletto heels, according to The Daily Mail.
Another visitor, Peter Gordon, tweeted a photo of the smashed glass.
Earlie told The Daily Mail that no one was never in danger, since the broken glass was only the top of the five layers of glass in each pane that make up the walkway.
"We are gutted it's happened in the first couple of weeks when it's been open to the public, but
it's completely safe," Earlie told ITV. "We should have said no glass on the glass section of the floor. It was a bit shortsighted of us."
The glass panels measure 11 meters long by 1.8 meters wide, and are the most significant change to the exhibition since its 1982 opening. The top layer was constructed so it could be easily replaced if needed.
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