Noida twin towers now ‘charged’ with 3,700 kgs of explosives

PTI, Aug 23, 2022, 9:49 AM IST

The rigging of both the illegal towers of Supertech in Noida with around 3,700 kgs of explosives has been completed for their scheduled demolition on August 28, officials said.

The charging process – placing of explosives – was completed on Monday evening and the next procedure, known as trunking, will start on Tuesday, they said.

A total of 40 people, including blasters and trained workers, had started charging the Ceyane (29 storeys) and Apex (32 storeys) towers together on August 13, according to an official of Edifice Engineering, the firm hired to demolish the twin towers.

Later, the team focused on Ceyane alone and completed its charging by August 17 and then moved to Apex, where the work was completed on Monday, the official said.

“We had made a schedule to complete the charging process by August 26. We had kept a buffer period for ourselves in order to make sure that the work gets completed in any case well before the scheduled demolition at 2.30 pm on August 28,” the Edifice official said.

”Now that the charging is complete, the next work is to connect all explosives together and then recheck these 20,000 connections in both the towers. After that is done, a main connection with the detonator will be made on the day of demolition only,” the official added.

Of the 40 workers present at site for charging, only 10 would remain on August 28.

Among them would be two Indian blasters and Edifice project manager Mayur Mehta and seven members of its South African expert partner Jet Demolition, according to the official.

The nearly 100-metre tall structures are scheduled for demolition in pursuance of a Supreme Court order that found the twin towers in Sector 93A were built in violation of norms.