00:003700 kgs of explosives, 10 men and 15 seconds.
00:06That's what it would take to turn these nearly 40-storey towers into dust on 28th August 2022.
00:13But the idea was not to explode the towers, the plan was to make them implode like a house of cards.
00:19This meant that the basement would explode first and then the other floors from the bottom up.
00:25The supertech towers in Noida Sector 93 had more than 900 flats in them,
00:31but they violated several norms of UP's Apartments Act.
00:35Nearly 18 floors on each tower were stuffed with explosives,
00:40and the demolition would be carried out by blasting the columns on these floors.
00:44It would take 9-10 seconds for all the explosives to go off in a series of loud blasts,
00:50and another 5 seconds for the buildings to collapse.
00:54The engineers behind the demolition were expecting the dust to clear in about 10 minutes.
01:00Taller than the Guto Minar, these would now become the highest structures to be demolished in India.
01:06But what about neighbouring buildings?
01:08The residents there removed all wall hangings, stuffed their clothes inside cupboards,
01:13uninstalled their televisions and tightly shut their windows.
01:17The blast was to be carried out at 2.30 pm,
01:20and more than 5,000 residents in the vicinity would have vacated the area by about 7 am.
01:27Two adjoining societies were covered with a mesh made of galvanised iron
01:32and a special fabric that doesn't allow dust to penetrate.
01:36The residents could return by 4 pm on demolition day.
01:39The Noida Authority had also arranged parking spaces for
01:432,500 cars that would need to be moved out of the neighbourhood.
01:46More than 50 hospital beds had been reserved in case anyone fell ill.
01:51Fire tenders and ambulances were on standby,
01:54and just 10 workers would remain on site.
01:57Two blasters, one project manager and seven experts.
02:01It would take clearing nearly 1,300 truckloads of debris after the demolition.
02:07As for the people who bought houses in these illegal towers,
02:11the Supreme Court had ordered them to be refunded
02:13and also paid 12% interest from the time of booking.
02:17The demolition was supposed to act as a cautionary tale
02:21for builders who resort to illegal construction for profits.
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