Preparations for carrying out controlled implosions of four Maradu apartments have entered the final stages with three days left for the event.
H2O Holy Faith, with a height of 68 metres, will be the tallest building in India to be thus demolished. After loading the building with explosives the other day, explosives experts completed their job at the first tower of Alfa Serene on Tuesday. As many as 1,500 holes were dug in the building and 200 kg of explosives loaded. The explosives in the holes were connected using 5,500 metre-long detonating wires.
In Jain Coral Cove, 1,471 holes were drilled to load 215 kg of explosives and 15,000-metre-long detonating wires used, said R. Venugopal, Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives.
The loading of explosives in the second tower of Alfa Serene and Golden Kayaloram began on Tuesday afternoon and will be completed by Wednesday evening.
Joint inspection
A joint inspection of the sites will be held 24 hours before the blast on Friday. Experts from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, the Ernakulam District Collector and police will carry out the inspection in the morning.
Experts from companies and their mining engineers will carry out the final inspection on January 11.
The sirens for issuing signals arrived at the site and were handed over to the authorities concerned, said Dr. Venugopal.
Control room
The Maradu municipality office will function as the control room for the blasts and it will be headed by Snehil Kumar Singh, Fort Kochi RDO in charge of the demolition.
Besides municipal officials, representatives of the police, Fire and Rescue Services and medical personnel would be stationed at the control room. It would be from the control room that all emergency and rescue management activities would be coordinated, said Mr. Singh.
Experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, will place 10 seismographs at strategic points to gauge the vibrations that would be generated when the buildings hit the ground. The IIT team members will be inside the 200-m exclusion zone demarcated by the authorities. Red flags indicating the boundary of the exclusion zone will be erected on Friday.
Other than the ambulances and fire tenders, no vehicles will be permitted inside the exclusion zone.
Power supply
Power supply to the area will be switched off at 9 a.m. The two ends of the Kundannur bridge that runs next to H2O Holy Faith will be blocked five minutes before the blast.
Since the bridge would be in the exclusion zone, onlookers would be not be permitted to view the demolition from there, Mr. Singh said.
