Workers in the Pingjiang County of Hunan Province, China are constructing a mountain road thousands of feet above ground under some seriously strenuous conditions.The men are given no ropes or safety harnesses, in fact all they have to protect themselves if they fall are hard hats. All the while, they spend their days hauling heavy planks and pushing cement-filled wheelbarrows across an extremely rickety walkway.Some images show the builders working on no more than rusty metal scaffolding.

Officials in China hope that the road will bring more tourists to the area, who will be able to walk along the scenic route.The region is well known for its mountains, and the national park is already attracting thousands of sightseers throughout the year.Capitalizing on this popularity, authorities commissioned a series of winding roads and glass walkways along some of its most vertical cliffs.Construction has been ongoing since 2011, though there have been no improvements to the health and safety conditions for workers.

When its complete, the road will be China’s longest mountain sightseeing road.Though the construction may scream danger to us, many of the workers are unfazed by the conditions of the job. 48-year-old engineer Yu Ji has worked on this and similar projects for over a decade now, and says ‘I don’t feel it’s so different from any other job. It’s not as dangerous as people think. You just wear ropes then everything is OK.’A glass-bottomed walkway opened in Pingjiang in 2014. Suspended 600ft above ground, the bridge stretches between two mountaintops. It is held up by steel cables, anchoring it to surrounding rocks, but when the wind blows the bridge sways rather heavily, causing quite an unsettling experience for tourists.

Specially trained staff have been employed to help visitors, who often find themselves paralysed by fear, along the path.While there haven’t been any major incidents stemming from the construction, the conditions these men are working under has to be questioned. Surely there are some very simple things that can be done to insure the safety of these courageous, hard working builders?