The road, one of the ten steepest in the world, was built in the 1970's by residents of Guoliang seeking better transport links with the closest cities, Huixian and Xinxiang. Locally it goes by the name "the road that does not tolerate any mistakes."
Before the tunnel was carved out of the mountains, residents of the village had to take the stairs – a treacherous set of 720 almost vertical steps.
The 13 villagers who built the 1,200 meter tunnel took five years to finish the project, and used about 12 tons of drill rods, and around 4,000 hammers.
The project began in 1962, when a county official was so moved by the arduous and frightening journey to get to Xiyagou, that he donated 3,000 yuan to the villagers to construct another, safer road.
These are some village houses in Guoliang Village on the mountaintop 1,700 m from sea level. http://t.co/qM5k4wWPlT pic.twitter.com/dNQeudGDgv
— All Things Chinese (@ClassicChina) 9 сентября 2015 г.
13 villagers from the remote village of Guoliang who pioneered the construction of this famous Tunnel Road in China’s pic.twitter.com/COwa1uwZDL
— OnTute (@ontute) 6 июля 2015 г.
Incredible Guoliang Tunnel Road and Village in #China, have you been there? @RoadTripBlogger pic.twitter.com/92unT9Z95i
— Renny Cross (@rennycross) 1 апреля 2015 г.
