World’s scariest job? Meet the workers building a 1m-wide wooden road on a vertical cliff face

By TED THORNHILL

Rickety: With only eagles for company, this builder inspects his handiwork, with his feet mere millimetres from the edge


If you suffer from vertigo, look away now.

While some people would find it unbearable to go anywhere near the edge of a cliff, these Chinese workers are building a plank road on the face of one that’s thousands of metres high.

The road they’re assembling is on Shifou Mountain in Hunan Province and stands vertical at 90 degrees without any slopes or alcoves.

What’s more, the road is just 1m (3.2ft) wide – the width of a dinner table – and the workers, from China's eastern Jiangxi Province, toil away on it with the bare minimum of safety measures.


Don't look down: This worker reaches out to tighten the scaffolding


Sheer madness: This picture shows just how narrow the road is - and just how vertical the cliff is


The scene is a terrifying one for those from health and safety conscious nations such as ours. The planks look distinctly thin and rickety and a fall to certain death is just centimetres away - but the workers toil away fearlessly every day.


Hang time: Surely there must be easier ways to make a living?


The finished road will stretch for three kilometres (1.8 miles), making it China’s longest sightseeing plank.

The question that many people will be asking is: Who will be brave enough to walk around it once it’s finished?


Up, up and away: The road the workers are building is just 1m wide - and there are plenty of gaps in it...

source: dailymail