STAFF REPORTER n NOIDA
Ahead of the demolition of the twin towers in Noida on Sunday, Supertech has written to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) requesting them to take precautionary measures with regards to the security of airplanes that may cross the area on the day.
A no-fly zone has also been imposed for around half an hour, from 15 minutes before the blast to until the dust settles. The Noida Traffic Police said that traffic will be stopped at both ends of the Yamuna Expressway for at least half an hour and movement is likely to resume only after the dust from the demolished buildings is settled.
Though the people living in the residential complexes around Supertech's twin towers are relieved that the skyscrapers will no longer cast a shadow on their homes, but there is palpable anxiety as the demolition date approaches. According to officials overseeing evacuation preparations, around 7,000 residents of the nearby societies including Emerald Court and ATS Village in Sector 93A, along with more than 150 pets, will have to vacate their homes by 7 A.M. while the security staff of these societies will also be moved out latest by 12 P.M. on Sunday. Around 2,700 vehicles from both the societies will also be removed. The residents would be allowed to return after 4 P.M. only after safety clearance from officials.
The electricity and water connections of the society will also be disconnected while the officials have requested residents to turn of gas connections, in order to avoid any untoward incident.The nearly 100-metre-tall towers, which came up illegally in Emerald Court's premises, will become India's tallest structures to be demolished by the use of implosion technique in pursuance of a Supreme Court order.
If all goes according to plan, the structures will go down at 2.30 P.M. on August 28, leaving behind a whopping 55,000 tonnes of debris. Emerald Court's Rajesh Rana (63), whose flat in Aster 2 tower is just nine metres from the twin towers, said these days the demolition is the only topic of discussion for them and it has been like this since the last few weeks. "Of course there is anxiety among people but we are more happy than worried about the demolition. It's a result of a long struggle for us,” Rana said. ATS' residents' group president Atul Chaturvedi, a retired Central Government bureaucrat, said, “Considering that it's an unprecedented event with not much document evidence of such demolitions except for the Maradu complexes in Kerala, there is a fear of the unknown among residents.”
Uday Bhan Singh Teotia (75), the president of Emerald Court residents' association said, “The adjoining Parsvnath Srishti, Parsvnath Prestige and Eldeco Utopia have offered to provide space in their community clubs to anyone from our societies who want to go there for the demolition period.”
While some residents are considering the offer, a large number of them are planning to move to their relatives' homes in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, and Ghaziabad even as some have planned to go on a vacation to places like Uttarakhand and Rajasthan among others, ATS' Chaturvedi said. Meanwhile, Felix Hospital has announced that it is reserving 50 beds on day of demolition in case of any emergency.