Twin towers demolition in Noida to be extended up to two months

Ceyane and Apex, the uninhabited towers at Emerald Court were due for tentative demolition on May 22. As per the orders by the Supreme Court both the towers were to be razed last August, after found built in violation of law.

Jet Demolitions, the company has given the job of bringing down the Supertech twin towers in Sector 93A has sought an extension of at least two months to carry out the demolition of the buildings in a letter written to the builder.

Ceyane and Apex, the uninhabited towers at Emerald Court were due for tentative demolition on May 22. As per the orders by the Supreme Court both the towers were to be razed last August after being found built in violation of the law.

An official said Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering and its joint venture partner, South-Africa-based Jet Demolitions, need more than two months to finalize the plan for the demolition as they have found the building to be stronger than expected.

“Edifice has sought more time on technical grounds, saying more preparation is needed. Another concern is that of the safety of neighboring buildings,” an official said. The companies are not keen on going ahead with the demolition until satisfied with preparations, the official added. The experts from Jet Demolitions and Edifice are creating the blast design.

CEO, of the Noida Authority, Ritu Maheshwari has shown unhappiness about this move and said any extension of the timeline will be a breach of the agreement with it. “Edifice has written to Supertech and the builder is responsible to take up the matter. The timeline extension is a violation of the earlier agreement. The authority will not be able to extend the timeline,” she said.

So far, the plan was to collapse the towers with over 4,000kg of explosives, higher than the initial estimate of around 2,500kg. Edifice officials had said after the April 10 test blast that the strength of the buildings was “quite good” and final preparations may take longer.

The final report from the test blast is pending but preparations for the demolition have begun. Shear walls and utilities will be torn down by mid-May. The edifice is also in the final stages of wrapping the primary blast floors with geotextile clothes. All of the building columns of these floors are to be charged with explosives. There are also seven secondary blast floors each in the two towers, where only 40% of columns will be charged with explosives. Here, only those selected pillars will be wrapped with iron mesh and geotextile clothes and not the entire floor, officials had said.