Don’t look down: Daredevils climb world’s second-tallest building without safety gear

Mon, 11 May, 2015 - 01:00

One year ago, Vadim Makhorov and Vitaly Raskalov terrified acrophobics everywhere with their stunning video of a safety-free climb of one of the world's tallest buildings.

Now they're back to do it once again - on an even taller one.

The building in question is the Shenzhen tower - an enormous, 660-metre tall (2,165ft) mountain still under construction in China - that's taller than two Eiffel Towers.

And did we mention the lack of any safety gear?

Turn on high definition, make it full screen, and scare yourself senseless.

"This time we went through a thorough preparation as we knew that not all predecessors who tried to conquer [the tower] had the luck to succeed," the duo wrote in a blog post.

"We were quite certain that the guards of (for the moment) the tallest building construction would have a clue that there are some Europeans out there willing to climb that building.

"But it was still, frankly saying, just plain awesome!"

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The duo were almost thwarted upon finding the roof access secured with a bicycle lock (and they left their bolt cutters about 600 metres below). Luckily, they manage to decode the lock - though one wonders where they picked up that skill.

Their previous video of the unassisted climb of the Shanghai Tower (over 600m tall) has racked up an incredible 42 million views on YouTube - and is just as heart-stopping as their latest attempt.