Climber captures his near death after sliding off cliff: ‘I couldn’t get up’

A man is lucky to be alive after taking a terrifying plunge down a steep mountainside in China – and he caught it all on camera.

Dramatic footage of the high-altitude climber’s disappearance has racked up nearly 445,000 shares on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

“I realized I couldn’t get up at all and I was slipping faster and faster,” Yang Meng, 42, told CNN as he recounted the near-death experience.

Meng was using a 360-degree camera to record his hike through the Fanzenjian Mountains in Anhui, about 280 miles west of Shanghai, when he slipped and fell on rain-slicked rocks.

“That’s when it hit me — I must have fallen off a cliff,” Meng recounts of the moment he began to slide uncontrollably down.

The self-recorded video shows the climber sliding down the cliff like a human slide.

Fortunately, Meng hits a tree, which stops his fall, likely saving his life.

“When I hit the tree, it felt like a heavy rock fell. I was just thinking, “There’s no way I’m dead,” said the grateful flipper.

Despite the dramatic fall, he emerged from the incident unscathed apart from some bruises on his leg and minor cuts on his hand and thigh.

Douyin’s viewers commented on how lucky he was to survive the fall.

Meng said the incident taught him that “life is short” so people should “nourish it every day”.

Of course, such an upheaval could put many people off walking again.

However, Meng said he won’t let the ordeal stop him from doing the things he loves.

“If anything, it’s pushing me to explore the world even more,” he said.

The saga came after heavy rains lashed the province, likely triggered by typhoons Yagi and Bebinca.

The latter, which made landfall on Monday, was described by Chinese media as the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in 75 years.

More than 400,000 people were evacuated ahead of the winds and torrential rain, which flooded roads and knocked out power to some homes, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, schools and roads have been closed and thousands of flights have also been cancelled.