Mumbai: Indian authorities started evacuating thousands of people from their homes on Saturday ahead of the demolition of two 40-storey skyscrapers in a residential area on the outskirts of New Delhi, officials and local media said.
The twin 103-metre tall (338-feet) apartment blocks are due to be imploded on Sunday in an operation lasting between 12 and 15 seconds - becoming the largest structures ever demolished in the country, according to local authorities.
India’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the builders of the two towers had violated a series of critical construction rules, ordering the buildings to be razed to the ground.
More than 3,700 kg of explosives will be used to demolish the buildings, known as Apex and Ceyane, which are located on the edge of a busy highway that links India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh to the capital.
The towers were covered with white plastic sheets as police gathered around the area and sealed off arterial roads in preparation for the operation, local television images showed.
People living in the vicinity will have to be evacuated by early Sunday and will be allowed to return to their homes five hours after the demolition has been completed.
Despite rampant illegal building in India’s cities, demolitions of large buildings are rare, and locals living close to the site said they feared damage to their properties from the force of the explosions or air pollution from the dust.
The Project Manager of the team deployed for the task assured the nearby residents to have faith in them and said that the best team was working to ensure a safe demolition, ANI reported.
“I understand the concern of the nearby people here, but I would like to give the message to them that please don’t be afraid. The best team in the world is working on the project,” said Jigar Chedda, Project Manager, Edifice Engineering.
“The Noida authorities have issued guidelines for the neighbouring people as they are very clear about what the people have to do, when they need to leave and come back, and what all precautions we are taking, the nearby residents are aware of everything,” he added.
He also expressed 100 per cent confidence in retaining the GAIL pipeline which is installed under the ground near the Twin Towers.
“GAIL pipeline is designed as per the Richter scale of 4 in the area which is already 3-metre under the ground. We have already spread plates and have created bumps over it so it is 100 per cent that there will be no damage to the pipeline,” he said.
Chedda further called the aforesaid project ‘technically more challenging’ than the previous three explosions which were done in Kochi, Ranchi, and Indore. “We will go as per the plan,” he said.
