Many young Da Nang dwellers and visitors flocking to the central Vietnamese city alike relish a climb up BTS (Base Transceiver Station) towers to take pictures for ‘check-in’ on social media, or derive thrill from the experience.

With elevations greater than 1,000 meters above sea level, these structures, located atop the Hai Van Pass to the south of Da Nang, have been increasingly frequented by visitors who wish to tell the world they have been there.

The risk-fraught trend, initially set by those who were adventurous, desired to display their intrepidity, or selected a high spot to shoot photographs, has rapidly gained popularity.

The story began with N.T.H, 24, who two years ago posted pictures taken on top of an unmonitored tower that he and his friends noticed by accident.

The pictures were hailed with admiration from friends, to whom he revealed the tower's location.

“The only thing coming to my mind was that I could have cool and unique pictures up there,” he said.

“That's the novel check-in point we discovered on our own.”

Young Vietnamese look down from a cloud-shrouded tower in this still image taken from a video shared on Facebook.

However, the full consequences have not realized by climbers, many of whom conquered the towers while braving the elements.

With climbers wearing no safety gear, the threat involved is enormous as their mobile phones and the towers can attract lightning, and the structures' steel inevitably rusts given its age, according to Nguyen Ke, technician of a BTS station on Hai Van.

The phenomenon is explicable since young people have a penchant for adventure, gravitating towards dangerous places to savor hair-raising experiences and express their self-worth, according to Tram Anh, dean of the educational psychology department at University of Education in Da Nang.

“At the heart of the problem lies young people's ignorance.”

They should be made fully aware of the riskiness of their actions, she noted.