Family

Children climb 800m cliff to get to school

This might be the scariest school run in the world.
Chinese children climb 800m ladder to get to school

Shocking new footage from rural China has shown how school children are being forced to scale an 800m cliff in order to get to and from their local school.

In what is being dubbed “the world’s scariest school run” 15 youngsters – some as young as six – have to climb rickety ladders and ropes to make the journey to their remote village of Atuleer in Sichuan province, southwestern China.

A village chief said that eight people had already died making the perilous 90-minute journey, according to The Guardian.

Dramatic photographs of the children clambering the steep bluffs garnered publicity in China this week, prompting the country’s leaders to take action.

According to local reports the government has announced plans to construct temporary stairs while a longer term upgrade is being considered.

In the meantime, some children have taken to sleeping at the school, only returning home twice a month to see their families.

The 72 families who live in Atuleer are members of the Yi minority group. They live off less than $1 a day and mainly subsist from farming potatoes, walnuts and chilli peppers.

You can watch footage of the children climbing to school here.

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