An 11-storeyed structure in a Chennai suburb, the twin of the ill-fated tower that crashed in 2014 resulting in the death of 65 workers, was demolished on Wednesday evening by controlled implosion. The entire process, for which preparations began three months ago, went on smoothly without any casualties.
The demolition of the structure was necessitated following the findings of a team of experts appointed by the Supreme Court that the structure was strong only to be a four-storey building and the construction of the additional seven storeys was a sure recipe to a disaster.
More than 60 people who had booked apartments in the building paying more than `45 lakh and above watched silently as their future dream houses were brought down by controlled implosion using RDX, gelatine sticks, ammonium nitrate, igniters and detonators.
All of them are paying monthly instalments of `55,000 for a non-existent property, a fall out of the greed of an unscrupulous builder and greedy Government officials.
As on date, there are no laws in the country’s rule books to help the people who invested their life savings in the project believing the sweet words of the real estate developer. Though the builder was arrested immediately after the crash of the first tower, he is out on bail and cocking a snook at the hapless investors as well as the law enforcing agencies, a cording to Anand Ramaswamy, a former bank official who watched the entire demolition process from a safe distance.
“let’s hope this will act as a deterrent to other fly by night operators who masquerade as real estate developers from cheating home buyers,” said Ramaswamy.
Thirupur-based Maglink Infra Project ltd had bagged the contract for the demolition of the building. This is the first of its kind controlled implosion in Tamil Nadu to bring down a tall building. The Maglink had in the past brought down many bridges and over-head water tanks in Tamil Nadu.
Elaborate arrangemets had been made for the smooth implosion operation under the supervision of R Gajalakshmi, the district collector of Kancheepuram. All residents within the 100 meter radious of the structure were evacuated to safe distance by Wednesday noon itself and all traffic in the vicinity was diverted. What remained after the implosion which took place around 6 55 pm was a plume of thick dust which literally covered the neighbouring areas. No untoward incident has been reported at the time of going to press.