Two of the four waterfront highrise apartment comples that were ordered to be demolished by the Supreme Court were razed to the ground shortly after 11 am usoing controlled explosiuve. Two more–Jain Coral Cove and Golden Kayaloram–will be brought down topmorrow.
H2O Holy Faith and Alfa Serene, the apartments built in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules at Maradu outside Kochi came crashing down within minutes after one another and it took less than 10 second for the two towers to be reduced to rubble. . An approximate 70,000 tonnes of rubble may take up to 60 days to be cleared. A total of 800 kilograms of explosives have been used to stack in the four apartment complexes that go down between today and tomorrow.
Venugopal, the top explosion expert soon after three blocks of flats of two builders here were razed to dust on Saturday, told the media that everything went off according to the plan.
The three block of flats came down at 11.17 a.m, 11.42 and 11.43 a.m.
Venugopal who coordinated the entire blasts said that everything went off as planned.
“We even were able to bring down the intensity of the implosion and everything went off well,” said Venugopal, adding that more details about it would be revealed in the afternoon.
“Everything is fine and there has been no damage at all in the nearby areas. We were confident that things would be fine,” said an official attached to the Mumbai-based company that did the blast.
The demolition of these flats took place following the Supreme Court order after it was found to be violating the Coastal Regulation Zone directives.
“We were very concerned about the safety of our home and honestly we were scared. But after returning to our homes, we find that nothing has happened to our homes,” said an elderly lady.
The experts who planned the implosion are now going around the places where the flats were razed down.
Fire tenders are now spraying water on the dust generated after the blast.
Concrete rubble has collected at the site where the three blocks stood till Saturday morning.
All the traffic curbs also have been lifted.