This summer, several extreme weather events and incidents related to amusement parks and scenic area management have drawn attention. From August 9th to 10th, a scenic area in southern China was temporarily closed due to a typhoon. The scenic area urgently deployed cable cars and sightseeing buses to transport tourists and residents down the mountain, and provided free food and accommodation for some stranded tourists.

On the afternoon of May 31, a region in Northeast China experienced extreme winds and a sandstorm. A roller coaster at an amusement park suddenly stopped mid-journey, leaving several passengers stranded. According to public information, the passengers were rescued within an hour. The park's customer service later told the media that the sudden severe weather caused a power outage, which brought the roller coaster to a halt.

According to several experts on large amusement park rides interviewed, while roller coaster stops mid-ride and always attracts public attention, a roller coaster that stops voluntarily in extreme weather generally indicates that its safety mechanisms have functioned successfully. If passengers receive timely rescue, it is a compliant response from the amusement park's perspective and does not constitute an "accident."

Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent. Tourist attractions and amusement parks, which handle large crowds, are learning how to cope with more unexpected situations.

According to the China Climate Change Blue Book (2026) released by the China Meteorological Administration, China experiences frequent and intense extreme weather events. From 1961 to 2025, the cumulative number of rainstorm days nationwide increased by 4.5% every 10 years.

On June 27, a sudden downpour occurred during the 360-degree rotation of the "Flying Swing" (giant swing) ride at an amusement park in northern China. Some joked, "It makes up for the regret that humans can't get into a washing machine." Others expressed concern: In situations where extreme weather is frequent, do various amusement park rides pose hidden risks?

Are amusement park rides safe during extreme weather?

Xun Hang, a Beijing resident, fell in love with roller coasters in 2010. Over the past 15 years, he has ridden approximately 900 roller coasters both domestically and internationally, experiencing almost all the major roller coasters in China. For him, the weather is one of the key concerns. Amusement park enthusiasts refer to the empty runs caused by roller coaster shutdowns as "empty runs," and such incidents happen frequently.

Once, he went to an amusement park in Florida, USA, specifically to see the park's famous roller coaster. The sky was clear and sunny, but park staff suddenly announced a lightning warning and the roller coaster was shut down. The next day, he gritted his teeth and bought another ticket, but just as he was about to board the ride, another lightning warning was issued, and he ended up returning home disappointed.

Based on his years of observation, domestic amusement parks are more conservative in dealing with extreme weather than their foreign counterparts. In Europe and America, amusement parks are not as sensitive to rain and snow as they are to lightning and strong winds; he has experienced roller coasters in the rain many times, but this has almost never happened in China. In his experience, most roller coasters in China stop operating as soon as it starts to drizzle, and after the rain, they usually have to "wait for the tracks to dry." He is used to calling the park before buying tickets to inquire whether the roller coasters are open.

Song Weike, director of the Technology Development Office of the Amusement Facilities and Passenger Ropeway Inspection and Testing Technology Research Center at the China Special Equipment Inspection and Research Institute, has participated in drafting several domestic safety technical specifications and national standards related to large-scale amusement facilities. He explained that my country's regulatory requirements and technical restrictions on amusement special equipment are among the strictest in the world.

Large amusement rides are classified as special equipment, and like other special equipment such as boilers, elevators, and lifting machinery, they pose a significant risk to personal and property safety and are subject to special equipment safety regulations. In amusement parks and scenic areas, rides with an operating speed exceeding 2 meters per second or a height exceeding 2 meters, and listed in the 13 categories of large amusement rides in the 2014 "Special Equipment Catalogue," are considered special equipment. Familiar large amusement rides include roller coasters, Ferris wheels, pendulum rides, pirate ships, bumper cars, and even some high-altitude carousels.

Jin Weiliang, deputy director of the Amusement Facility Inspection Center of Zhejiang Special Equipment Research Institute, explained that unsafe factors in the operation of amusement facilities include: unsafe human behavior, unsafe conditions of equipment, environmental factors, and management factors.

Weather is part of the environmental factors. According to technical principles, low temperatures may affect the flexibility of the equipment's wheels, while high temperatures may cause some sensors to malfunction. For classic large-scale amusement rides such as roller coasters and Ferris wheels, the most sensitive weather factors are strong winds and lightning.

According to many industry experts, when large-scale extreme weather occurs, meteorological observatories issue orange or higher warnings, and scenic spots and amusement parks can generally close in advance. The real challenge lies in sudden, localized weather changes.

In the aforementioned incident on June 27th where the "Flying in the Air" ride was caught in a sudden downpour, according to media interviews with witnesses and park staff, it was not raining when the ride started operating. When the rain began, the ride was already in its later stages. If emergency measures had been taken midway, some riders might have faced the risk of falling headfirst. To avoid panic and longer waiting times, staff opted for the automatic operation mode to complete the process, stating that it was "safe."

This demonstrates the suddenness of severe convective weather. Xu Xiaofeng, president of the China Meteorological Service Association and former deputy director of the China Meteorological Administration, previously analyzed for China Youth Daily that against the backdrop of global warming, severe convective weather will be more likely to occur or be more intense than before. Accurate forecasting of severe convective weather such as strong winds and heavy rains has always been a global challenge. Globally, time-based and location-specific severe convective weather forecasts only achieve about 20% overlap with reality.

Environmental risks cannot be completely avoided. According to current regulations, large amusement rides exceeding 10 meters in height must be equipped with an anemometer. National standards stipulate that roller coasters must cease operation when wind speeds reach 15 meters per second. Strong winds trigger automatic safety mechanisms, while lightning strikes can cause electrical system failures, both of which can leave the ride stranded in mid-air, causing panic and often resulting in public pressure on some tourist attractions.

Another roller coaster enthusiast, who has ridden hundreds of times, believes that the roller coaster stopping is a "good thing," indicating that "the machine detected the problem." Song Weike explained that a roller coaster may have hundreds to thousands of sensors, densely distributed under the seats and track tubes. Once a sensor detects a problem, or if the sensor itself fails due to water ingress or other reasons, the equipment will stop according to the "fail-safe principle."

This could result in people being stranded. According to laws and regulations, the park must provide rescue within one hour; otherwise, it constitutes a special equipment accident. Therefore, Song Weike stated that most reputable amusement parks have relatively complete emergency plans and rescue procedures, and conduct regular drills. He hopes to remind tourists that if stranded, they should not unfasten their seatbelts or leave the equipment themselves, but cooperate with the park's rescue efforts; generally, there will be no life-threatening situations. According to GB 8408-2018 "Safety Specifications for Large-scale Amusement Facilities," special equipment must be equipped with monitoring, and the legality and compliance of the handling will be assessed afterward.

Song Weike also mentioned that "safety capabilities cannot be increased indefinitely."

He explained that during the design phase of large amusement facilities, designers need to calculate the required capabilities of the equipment under both normal and extreme operating conditions. The latter, targeting extreme weather, is generally designed to withstand natural disasters such as wind, snow, and earthquakes that occur once every 50 years. Since the equipment is scheduled to shut down under these extreme weather conditions, the design standard is to prevent the equipment itself from undergoing "permanent deformation," such as breakage or collapse.

This mandatory standard was calculated based on a large amount of historical data. Song Weike explained that if designed according to the 100-year event standard, taking a Ferris wheel as an example, thicker materials would be needed, significantly increasing costs. The overall structure would be more "robust," increasing its weight, and safety might actually decrease.

He said that testing and inspection agencies generally advise companies to take precautions against higher risks in certain areas. For example, for large Ferris wheels located in earthquake zones in western China, testing agencies may advise companies to design them according to higher safety standards, but they cannot impose unreasonably high "safety" requirements on equipment in all regions, as this would be "not in line with the spirit of science."

According to Song Weike, the regulatory system for large-scale amusement facilities is quite complete in terms of design, manufacturing, and installation, but the relatively weak link is the use and operation.

According to Song Weike's rough statistics on accidents involving large amusement rides over the past 20 years, most accidents are caused by insufficient management and operation. For example, in small parks and open parks across the country, stalls operated on a lease-and-contract basis often lack sufficient maintenance capabilities. Furthermore, current oversight of the usage phase is relatively weak. Last year, during an undercover investigation, he also discovered that some operators of mobile amusement rides at temple fairs would reduce the speed and height of their equipment during inspections, disguising it as a small amusement ride to evade stricter regulations.

Because there are many uncontrollable factors in the usage process, "the consensus in the entire industry is that we must ensure the 'inherent safety' of the equipment," Song Weike explained. "When the equipment leaves the factory, we try to take all possible risks into account and ensure sufficient safety redundancy."

One issue Song Weike is currently addressing is the safety assessment of equipment after extreme weather. He explained that most facilities do not carry passengers during super typhoons or similar weather events, but whether they can carry passengers after the typhoon, and whether they can resume passenger service after routine maintenance, requires assessment. "Are there any deeper damages?" This work is underway, and a set of assessment and response mechanisms may be established.

How do scenic spots cope with extreme weather?

According to many experts, natural scenic areas, often located in the mountains or along rivers, face greater challenges than amusement parks in cities.

Liu Ran, a passenger ropeway expert at the China Special Equipment Inspection and Research Institute, told reporters from China Youth Daily that passenger ropeways commonly found in scenic areas are also classified as special equipment, and their own safety inspection standards are relatively complete. The difficulty lies in weather warnings.

He said that, taking the aerial cableway in the scenic area as an example, the current pain point in the industry is that there are strong gusts of wind in the mountains, and they are difficult to predict accurately. According to his industry observations, the frequency of such strong winds has been increasing in the past three years.

Based on the technical principles of cableways, they must consider the impact of wind loads and possess a certain degree of wind resistance. They are also equipped with wind speed monitoring and alarm devices. However, the terrain and wind conditions in mountainous areas make accurate forecasting and monitoring difficult. Sometimes, the wind is very light at the station and wind speed monitoring areas, while a significant instantaneous wind can occur in a certain section of the cableway, leading to information gaps in response efforts. Cableways have an upper limit to their wind resistance; exceeding this limit will cause them to detach. While the cableway is designed to prevent personnel from falling, they will be suspended in the air. Rescue operations in mountainous areas are also significantly more challenging.

He explained that the ability to obtain weather information varies among different amusement parks in the city. For example, some large parks in China have their own internal weather forecasting systems that provide hourly and minute-level weather information, which is difficult for smaller parks to achieve. However, overall, the weather in urban areas is less prone to sudden changes than in scenic areas, and the weather forecast and warning information is generally sufficient, "not by much."

He explained that there are currently over 1,100 passenger ropeways in operation in my country, built starting in the 1980s. Construction was cautious due to ecological considerations. Among the existing passenger ropeways, there are differences in wind resistance between older and newer lines. Ropeways built during the Beijing Winter Olympics have advanced technology and can withstand wind speeds up to 20 meters per second, while some older ropeways built around 2000 have only about half that wind resistance. Therefore, it is currently difficult to establish a standard plan requiring ropeways to cease operation at a specific wind speed. In 2018, the State Administration for Market Regulation focused on investigating and rectifying wind speed monitoring and alarm systems, improving the shortcomings of earlier ropeways in this area. After this investigation and rectification, most ropeways now reduce speed or evacuate passengers and cease operation in winds of around level seven.

According to Liu Ran's observation, many scenic area operators also hold a conservative attitude. Some will stop operating when faced with a level 6 wind, and they will also stop operating when a large-scale weather forecast indicates that there may be strong winds and heavy rain.

During one exchange, he recalled that a cable car operator said they hoped for a system to "prevent strong winds and lightning in advance," even if it meant knowing 10 minutes in advance that there might be a gale force. "This has always been a blank area," Liu Ran said. Because there are only more than 1,100 cable cars nationwide, the market is small, and currently no organization or service provider is conducting research and development or providing technical services tailored to the needs of cable cars in extreme weather conditions.

One of Liu Ran's recent tasks is to develop technical specifications and standards for meteorological disasters affecting passenger aerial cableways, with the aim of establishing a standardized process "from prevention to emergency response".

He explained that the current rate of cableway additions is slow because many scenic areas are located in nature reserves, and construction is proceeding very cautiously. "On average, each province adds less than one cableway per year."

At the same time, Liu Ran noted that in the past five years, various scenic spots have been using magic carpets, inclined elevators and other equipment as alternatives. However, from a technical and practical point of view, magic carpets are more dangerous than cable cars. Cable cars are "a very complete or very classic electromechanical system for carrying people," while magic carpets have "many single failure points." Once a problem occurs, people are more likely to face danger.

He explained that due to the numerous safety accidents involving magic carpets in recent years, the government is now including magic carpets in its regulatory scope. Currently, the national standard "Technical Requirements for Passenger Conveyor Belts in Scenic Areas" is open for public comment.

Are amusement rides not included in the special equipment catalog more dangerous?

According to Song Weike, large-scale amusement facilities are subject to strong supervision at every stage, from design and manufacturing to installation and use, through laws, regulations, technical specifications, and national standards. What is more alarming are emerging high-risk manned equipment that has not been approved or evaluated by relevant industry authorities. Some may resemble special equipment, "but not quite."

On May 3rd of this year, a 16-year-old girl tragically fell to her death while experiencing the waterfall swing (also known as the "giant swing") at an adventure park in Southwest China. On March 15th, 2026, the operating company announced via its official Weibo account that the park's new high-altitude attractions, the giant swing, the cloud ladder, and the cliffside via ferrata, had opened simultaneously, with the waterfall swing boasting a 300-meter swing arc.

Song Weike explained that, according to the Special Equipment Safety Law, amusement facilities are classified as special equipment only if two conditions are met simultaneously: their speed or height must meet standards; and they must conform to the definition of large-scale amusement facilities and be listed in the special equipment catalog. This type of swing is currently not listed in the special equipment catalog. However, it possesses characteristics of extreme sports, and some large swing projects in domestic scenic areas have obtained "High-Risk Sports Project Operation Licenses" from the sports authorities, effectively placing them under the management of extreme sports.

In addition to large swings, he also observed that some high-altitude slides, canyon rafting, mountain tobogganing, etc., are not classified as special equipment and have not been approved or safety assessed by relevant departments, posing a high potential risk.

According to media reports, in July 2025, a raft capsized at the Feiyu Valley rafting project in Southwest China, resulting in one person falling into the water and drowning after going missing.

Song Weike explained that some rafting projects operate on artificial equipment, which is classified as special equipment, and "there are requirements for the slope, turning radius, smoothness, and inclination of the waterway." However, some natural canyon rafting projects developed in scenic areas cannot be regulated in this way. Another expert told reporters that these types of natural canyon rafting projects are classified as "sports projects" and are therefore considered "dangerous sports projects," and thus are primarily subject to the principle of self-responsibility.

In July of this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation organized the revision of the "Safety Requirements for Large-Scale Amusement Facilities (Draft for Public Comment)," which is currently open for public feedback. Jin Weiliang, deputy director of the Amusement Facility Inspection Center of the Zhejiang Provincial Special Equipment Science Research Institute, noted that the revisions from 2000 to 2008, and then to 2018, have all addressed recent incidents and strengthened requirements. For example, he noted that this draft requires that "large-scale amusement facilities that rotate around a horizontal axis and have counterweights should be equipped with automatic control measures to prevent the passenger section from reaching a stationary state (dead point) at its highest point," whereas the previous wording was "manual or automatic." He explained that manual control might be slower, and passengers hanging upside down in the air might experience physical discomfort.

Under extreme weather conditions, scenic spots and amusement parks also face real survival pressures.

Xun Hang enjoys visiting water parks, but he's noticed that Beijing's water parks only have a roughly three-month opening window during the summer. However, due to weather conditions, one water park frequently closes temporarily. Pu Yang, a specialized amusement equipment manufacturer in South China, told China Youth Daily that in the past, installing and building a medium-sized water park could be completed in a month by 20-odd workers. Now, it often takes two to three months—some specialized equipment is quite tall, and operations are impossible in strong winds or other weather conditions. Wages must be paid as usual during work stoppages. He provides customized water park services to operators and has also noticed that more operators are choosing to build indoor water parks in recent years, aiming to create a "constant temperature" environment, despite the higher costs.

From a tourist's perspective, Xun Hang, a roller coaster enthusiast, hopes that some amusement parks can offer "replay tickets for rainy days," allowing visitors to return on a later date if a ride is cancelled due to heavy rain. A more mutually beneficial operating model still requires further exploration from all parties.

(Source: Guo Yujie, reporter for China Youth Daily)