Explosive finale: Twin towers set to fall today | India News

NOIDA: Since they started taking shape a decade ago, the hours after Saturday evening were the quietest around the twin towers. Once the selfie-takers had departed, the TV cameras had powered down and droves of curious visitors had ebbed away, the towers stood in a warp of absolute stillness, appearing to wait solemnly for the end.
Apex and Ceyanethe two towers built by Supertech in its Emerald Court compound in Sector 93A, will be brought down exactly at 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon. The ‘waterfall implosion’ that will bring them back to their foundations is a feat of engineering. It will be triggered by a series of synchronised charges that will blow up 3,700kg of explosives packed into the towers in such a way that they fall into their imprint and leave neighbouring buildings unscathed.
The implosion has been designed by explosives expert Joe Brinkmann. The explosives will be triggered over nine seconds and the towers are expected to fall in 15 seconds.
The towers loom over a crowded neighbourhood of buildings in Sector 93A, the closest of which, Aster-2, is just 9 metres away and is about one-third the height of Apex. While the experts have said they are fully confident about their blast design, there is trepidation in the vicinity about possible damage to other buildings.

The demolition will take place three days short of a year since the Supreme Court declared the twin towers illegal for violation of building laws and ordered them razed on August 31, 2021, and 10 years after the final revision of the layout plan by the Noida Authority paved the way for their current shape.

Apex (103 metres) and Ceyane (94 metres) will be the tallest buildings in India whose implosion will be engineered, an exercise that needed six months of extensive preparation and unprecedented in terms of its scale and challenge as well as the quantum of explosives used to bring down a building in India. In the 2020 demolitions of illegal waterfront buildings at Maradu (Kochi), the only comparable exercise, around 1,600kg of explosives was used, according to media reports.

Families evacuated from their homes at Emerald Court and the adjacent ATS Greens Village through Saturday with balconies, common areas, swimming pools, lawns and benches all wrapped in plastic to protect them from the massive cloud of dust the twin towers’ collapse will generate. Though the evacuation deadline is 7am on Sunday, residents said both societies — comprising around 1,400 families — will empty out well in advance.
The Noida expressway will shut for traffic from 2.15pm till the dust settles and road is traffic-worthy again while the air space in a one nautical mile radius above the blast area will be no-fly zone for a brief period before and after the demolition.

At 2pm, after a final check inside the twin towers, the six-member team of blasters will take position 100 metres away with the detonator. A wire will connect the detonator to the explosives in the twin towers. At 2.29pm, the blare of a siren will signal the final countdown.

Officials of Edifice Engineering, which has been hired to bring the buildings down, rechecked explosives packed into the towers on Saturday and said all preparations were in place for the detonation. Brinkmann’s Jet Demolition is Edifice’s partner in the project and is overseeing the technical aspects of the implosion.
Mayur Mehta, project manager at Edifice, said, “Once again, rechecking of connections was done and everything was found to be in the right condition. The process will be repeated on Sunday morning. By 12pm, the two towers will be interconnected with wires, which will be stretched another 100 metres to connect with the exploder. At 2.25pm, we will take clearance from the police and after five minutes, the button will be pressed to bring down the towers.”
Mehta appealed to the people not to panic and have faith in the experts. “The blast design has been made keeping in mind all precautions. We are sure there will be no problem,” he added. To a question from PTI about how safe the exercise would be, Mehta replied, “100%. I don’t have any other word. We are 100% confident.”
To reduce the effect of dust generated after the demolition, Noida Authority will press six mechanical sweepers and 200 sanitation workers into service. Arrangements have also been made to wash roads, pavements, central verges and trees and plants of the affected area with more than 100 tankers being arranged, besides 15 anti-smog guns being deployed so that the level of dust pollution can be reduced.
The UP Pollution Control Board will continuously monitor air quality of the affected area. Over 400 police officials have been deployed for security and traffic measures in the area and to watch over the exclusion zone, which is a 500-700-metre area around the towers. Six ambulances, four fire tenders, and National Disaster Response Force and paramilitary teams will be deployed around the site. Four hospitals have been put on standby in case of an emergency.
Issuing a public advisory, the Noida Authority appealed that children, the elderly and people suffering from respiratory diseases in all residential areas located near the demolition site should wear masks for a few hours from 2.30pm as a precautionary measure. The demolition is likely to generate 80,000 tonnes of rubble and a giant dust cloud.