The Oriental Pearl Tower Glass Exploded from Heat? Staff Reply

Source: OT-Team(G), 光明网

On June 26, a video posted by a social media user sparked widespread attention, showing a cracked transparent glass panel at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. The user claimed that the panel cracked due to the extreme summer heat.

The footage shows fine cracks spreading across a floor-level glass panel, with the city skyline visible in the background. The person filming points to the damaged area and says, "Just now, my foot was right here, and then it cracked. The sound scared me to death."

The incident is believed to have occurred at the tower's 259-meter-high fully transparent suspended sightseeing corridor.

On June 26, the management of the Oriental Pearl Tower confirmed that a crack had appeared in the middle layer of one of the glass panels in the corridor on the morning of June 25. The sightseeing corridor is constructed with a three-layer tempered glass system to ensure complete safety. Only the middle layer of one panel was affected, while both the inner and outer layers remained intact, meaning the structural integrity and safety were not compromised.

The affected panel has since been sealed off, and visitors can continue to tour the corridor safely. The tower management added that the glass will be promptly custom-replaced to ensure optimal viewing experience.

Additional information about the structure reveals that this is the world's only 360-degree fully transparent suspended sightseeing corridor, located at the tower's second major sphere. The corridor's five-layer tempered glass is fused using high-temperature technology with DuPont adhesive imported from the United States, ensuring crystal-clear transparency while being up to 100 times stronger than ordinary tempered glass. Its hardness is said to rival that of diamonds, and even if the glass were to fully shatter, it would neither dent nor collapse.

Under normal conditions, each square meter of glass can bear up to 800 kilograms (far above the international standard of 300 kilograms per square meter), easily supporting the weight of 30 adult men or 800 kilograms of sandbags.