World's Most Dangerous Commute to School

Did you know a group of children have to hike down a mountain, just to go to school? On this episode we uncover the world’s most dangerous commute to school.

Usually kids just sit on the school bus, in their parents car or walk to school but the children of Atuler Village undergo a death defying hike vertically up a mountain to and from school. Atuler Village in Sichuan Province, China is located at an elevation of 4,600 feet or 1400 meters above sea level. The reason for this extreme commute to school is that a small village is located at the top of the mountain plateau where the school that serves locals, is at the bottom. This leaves the 72 families that live at the top is a bad situation. At one point there was an electric ropeway which would pull the villagers up but they couldn’t afford to keep it running so it was removed. Numerous People have died taking this dangerous journey, for this reason parents escort their children down to school and come down and tie a rope to their children and help them going back up. Children age 16 or younger are not allowed to traverse the mountain path without being accompanied by an adult.

The only way to get to school is to descend 2,625 feet or 800 meters to the bottom of the mountain on a set of 17 very precarious vine ladders. Now they don’t do this trek everyday, the children live at the school and come home every 2 weeks. It takes them 60 minutes to descend the mountain and 90 minutes to go up. 2 of the ladders near the top are nearly vertical spanning 328 feet or 100 meters. Many have asked why the 72 families that live at the top don’t move down. Most of them live in poverty conditions as there is no way for them to bring enough of their goods down and sell them. The land in the village is fertile and is used to mostly grow corn with a bit of peppercorn and walnut. They also have cows, sheep and pigs. They are essentially stuck in a situation where they can’t make enough money to move to lower land where they’d be able to make more money.

The young men of the village are mostly all single because getting married is only possible at the base of the mountain at a steep price of 23,000 USD. Most women don’t want to be married to someone who lives in Atuler village because of its inaccessibility. The local government was planning on raising money to build a road in the years of 2004 - 2009 but because of a crash in the economy, that idea was scrapped. Recently with the world wide exposure of this story, many different government sources have vouched to build a steel stairway for the people of Atuler village. This is a good first step for the people but they really need a road so they can introduce tourism and get their goods down to sell them. The government kept good with their promise of the steel ladder seen here which gives the villagers safe hand and foot holds all the way up without risk of one of the rungs breaking. This has been especially welcomed with the removal of the precarious 2 largest ladders towards the top with sturdy steel ones with handrails. I’m sure the parents still tie the children to their waist with a rope but has alievated a lot of stress with this journey. Do you think you could climb this mountain on those old wooden ladders? Let us know in the comments below. I hope you guys enjoyed this video, until the next one, have a good one.

Image Sources:
http://www.imaginechina.com/

Video Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypsEhzjzIhk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0NFoa2qqs

Music:
Ross Bugden
https://soundcloud.com/rossbugden

Check out some of our other videos:

Top 10 Fruits You’ve Never Heard Of Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRdgPyZF45g&feature=youtu.be
Top 10 Fruits You’ve Never Heard Of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKTej1u-7-0&feature=youtu.be

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Intro music thanks to Machinmasound:
Rallying the Defense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPk4RD19Nw

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