Heart-pounding video of free climb up world's second-tallest building

'Today we will show you how to climb the second tallest building in the world.'

Fri, 14 Feb, 2014 - 12:36

Dave Molloy

"Today we will show you how to climb the second tallest building in the world," reads the description to the latest video from Vadim Makhorov and Vitaly Raskalov.

That's the Shanghai Tower in China. And they should add: "without a parachute".

The daredevil team behind OnTheRoofs decided to tackle the world's second-tallest building, which stands at almost 650m (more than 2,000 feet) – or roughly two Empire State Buildings (380m), without any kind of equipment.

The tower isn't fully finished inside, and the masked climbers may not be doing something entirely legal, but it's an incredible video. If you're short on time, skip to about 1:30. And wait until the end when they decide to climb the crane on top of the building.

You might have noticed a camera being used during the climb - Vadim takes his with him and shoots some amazing photos from the top, which are well worth checking out on his 500px profile.

Mad men.

Hat-tip to Geekologie and Time magazine, who covered this in recent days.