Tourist finds water pipe at source of China's 'tallest waterfall'

Social media users in China were left shocked after discovering a waterfall hailed as the country's tallest is fed by a pipe.

A video posted on Douyin - The Chinese counterpart to TikTok - showed water gushing out of a tube built into rocks at the top of the falls.

"I went through many hardships to get to Yuntai Waterfall but only saw a pipe," a voiceover said.

The 314-metre-tall spectacle is in Yuntai Mountain Park in China's Henan province, which has been given the highest possible rating by the country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Yuntai Mountain Park’s management responded to the video, and said changes in the dry season meant the waterfall needed an extra boost.

Credit: Douyin / @Farisvov

“The waterfall cannot guarantee to meet the public in its most beautiful appearance due to season changes,” they said, adding that it underwent “a tiny improvement during dry season.”

Management promised the waterfall would be ready for guests this summer in its “most perfect and most natural form.”

The revelation shocked some social media users, but others were more sympathetic.

“The source of a waterfall is not what people came to see anyway, I don’t think it counts as lying to the public” said one Weibo user.

Yuntai is not the first Chinese waterfall to be given an artificial push. In 2004, a dam was built to help the Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou province continue cascading down during the dry season.

At the time, the province applauded the dam, saying it would “put an end to the history of Huangguoshu Waterfall drying up.”

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