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Authorities in south-west China have vowed to come to the aid of an isolated mountain village after photographs emerged showing the petrifying journey its children are forced to make to get to school.
To attend class, backpack-carrying pupils from Atuler village in Sichuan province must take on an 800-metre rock face, scrambling down rickety ladders and clawing their way over bare rocks as they go.The photographs were taken by Chen Jie, an award-winning Beijing News photographer whose pictures of last year’s deadly Tianjin explosions were recognised by the World Press Photo awards earlier this year.Chen, who spent three days visiting the impoverished community, said the perilous trek, which he undertook three times, was not for the faint of heart. “It is very dangerous. You have to be 100% careful,” he told the Guardian. “If you have any kind of accident, you will fall straight into the abyss.”
So steep was the climb that Zhang Li, a reporter from China’s state broadcaster CCTV who was also dispatched to the mountain, burst into tears as she attempted to reach Atuler village.Images of their terrifying and potentially deadly 90-minute descent went viral on the Chinese internet this week after they were published in a Beijing newspaper.
Chen used his WeChat account to describe the moment he first witnessed the village’s 15 school children, aged between six and 15, scaling the cliff. “There is no doubt I was shocked by the scene I saw in front of me,” he wrote, adding that he hoped his photographs could help change the village’s “painful reality”.
To attend class, backpack-carrying pupils from Atuler village in Sichuan province must take on an 800-metre rock face, scrambling down rickety ladders and clawing their way over bare rocks as they go.The photographs were taken by Chen Jie, an award-winning Beijing News photographer whose pictures of last year’s deadly Tianjin explosions were recognised by the World Press Photo awards earlier this year.Chen, who spent three days visiting the impoverished community, said the perilous trek, which he undertook three times, was not for the faint of heart. “It is very dangerous. You have to be 100% careful,” he told the Guardian. “If you have any kind of accident, you will fall straight into the abyss.”
So steep was the climb that Zhang Li, a reporter from China’s state broadcaster CCTV who was also dispatched to the mountain, burst into tears as she attempted to reach Atuler village.Images of their terrifying and potentially deadly 90-minute descent went viral on the Chinese internet this week after they were published in a Beijing newspaper.
Chen used his WeChat account to describe the moment he first witnessed the village’s 15 school children, aged between six and 15, scaling the cliff. “There is no doubt I was shocked by the scene I saw in front of me,” he wrote, adding that he hoped his photographs could help change the village’s “painful reality”.
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