Twin Tower Destroyed

Noida Twin Tower Collapsed August 28: The highest structure in India to be demolished, the tower standing almost 100 meters tall - taller than Qutub Minar.

 

In the legal battle of almost nine year, the Supertech Twin Towers in Noida were reduced to rubble on Sunday August 28th. The towers, Ceyane (29 floors) and Apex (32 floors), part of Supertech Ltd's Emerald Court project, were found to be in violation of various building codes and were therefore demolished. 

India's tallest building to be demolished, the tower, which has about 850 flats and is located in Sector 93A on the Noida-Greater Noida highway, stands nearly 100 meters - tall than the Qutub Minar. Preparations, from cleaning the house to cleaning the area, are well underway at the beginning of this week. The Residents Welfare Association (RWA) has issued a notice to the residents of the nearby apartment, ATS Greens Village and Emerald Court, on Sunday morning. According to the police, Emerald Court has 15 towers and ATS Village has about 25 tower and four villas. 

 

A 500-meter circle around it is an exclusion zone, where no people or animals are allowed except for members of the demolition team. Apart from that, the police, a team from the National Disaster Response Force, eight ambulances and four fire tenders were deployed on the site.

 

Supertech obtained approval in 2005 by the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida) to build 14 towers with nine floors each, a sales (shopping) complex and a garden area. However it revised his work in 2009 to include two towers - Apex and Ceyane. Even the NOIDA supports new plans, the Emerald's Court owners resident welfare association moved the Allahabad court in  2012, saying it is illegal. 

 

In a judgement made by Allahabad court , the tower was declared  illegal and ordered demolition.

 

The Noida authority and Supertech officials approached the Supreme Court to challenge the order. On August 31, 2021, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Allahabad High Court and ordered the demolition of the buildings. The Supreme Court found that the construction of the Twin Towers violated ‘minimum distance requirements’, - said that the towers were being built without following building codes and fire safety standards also the change of the plan - to remove the garden to make way for the construction of Apex and Ceyane - was done without the consent of the flat owners, which violate the Uttar Pradesh Apartments Act, 2010.

 

The Supreme Court, in August 2021, while ordering the demolition of the illegally constructed high-rises, said that they were built through "collusion between the NOIDA officials and the company", and empowered  to sue  officials for violating Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act, 1976 and the Uttar Pradesh Apartments Act, 2010. Although the Court ordered the demolition within three months, several delays led to the final date being set on August 28,2022. 

 

The Supertech tower will be demolished by 'controlled implosion', meaning it will collapse when explosives are placed in the right direction i.e strategically and detonated to ensure minimal damage to the environment. The process behind the implosion involves gradually weakening the important support of the building, that is, removing the structure, that will help resist gravity. This will be achieved through multiple explosives embedded in the structure. Most of the time, cracks in the basement of the structure lead to the controlled collapse of the building. 

 

This method was used in 1773 for the first time to destroy the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Waterford, Ireland with 68.04 kilograms of explosives. It was recently used in India during the 2020 demolition of four luxury waterfront apartments in front of Vembanad Lake in Kochi's Maradu for violating the Coastal regulation Zone. The same method can be used to demolish bridges, chimneys, towers, tunnels and other things.

 

Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering teamed up with South Africa's Jet, same team for the demolition in Maradu, to demolish the Supertech tower. One of the longest processes in the controlled implosion is the preparation to place the chemicals. For this demolition, the preparation took almost seven months, including one month of planning and six months of site preparation, said, CEO of Edifice Engineering. 

 

About 3,700 kilograms of explosives were placed in the two towers. Apex has 11 primary explosive floors, where all the columns on the floor have explosives, and 7 secondary floors, where 60% of the columns will explode. Ceyane has 10 primary blast floors. 

 

The main equipment used for blasting is an emulsion with high rock-crushing qualities, generally used underground for heavy blasts and mines.  Though they have used a lesser quantity on Supertech since the building does not require much as said by CEO of Edifice.

 

In addition to the emulsion, shock tubes are also used that will conduct the blast wave and make the actual eplosion, as well as electrical and non-electrical detonator that will trigger the explosives. This event, which took about 13 seconds, leave up to 80,000 tons of construction and debris, of which 50,000 to 55,000 tons will be used to fill the area, the rest will be transported to 'a building site and a demolition plant for processing. 

 

There are many concerns about the demolition of Noida Supertech Twin Towers. 

 

The first is the amount of dust that the destruction will create. 

 

The second is clearing debris, although officials say the debris will be cleared within three months. 

 

Third, experts have expressed concern about the dust generated by the explosion, which could remain in the air for weeks and cause health problems for people in the area. The Noida authority said it will provide water tankers, mechanical sweeping machine and sanitation workers to control the dust menace. Officials have also promised to monitor air quality. 

 

Gaurav Saxena, a resident of Emerald Court, left Noida for Nainital on Saturday night with his 65-year-old mother as he worried about the quality of the air.  Saxena plans to return to her home on Monday, but says he and his neighbors are hoping the plastic sheets put up to cover their windows and balconies will protect them. He also hoped that the rain would bring relief.

 

Mehta (CEO), meanwhile, said: "We expect the dust to clear within 10 minutes. When it does, our team will inspect the site and check if there are any explosives left to detonate. The settlement of dust depends on the wind and its strength. "

 

The impact of Noida's dust and poor air quality cannot be ruled out, said, a Delhi-based environmentalist and  CO-founder of the New Delhi Nature Society. He said that more scientific methods should be used to control dust other than spraying water. 

 

Another concern is the tremors and waves that destruction of this magnitude can cause. Mehta said that most of the industry studies predict a vibration travel time of 20 to 34 mm/s but  on the ground, there will be a smaller impact, he says, because predictions are made without considering the design of the blast. “We call the design a waterfall implosion. The final point of the building falls six to seven seconds after the first point. 

 

Therefore, there is no sudden impact on the ground and tremors will gradually be transmitted," he said. Mehta said the company had assured the neighboring societies that there would be no vibration that could damage buildings but could cause cracks. He also said that officials will check the vibrations during the event in different places to find out what was damaged. Residents will be allowed to return home on Sunday evening, a few hours after the destruction.