The loading of 3,700 kg explosives into the columns of Supertech’s twin towers at the Emerald Court complex was completed on Monday, wrapping up the charging process of the buildings with six days to go for the August 28 demolition.
The blasters’ team will now move to the second stage, which is called trunking.
Charging of Apex and Ceyane began on August 13, with a 15-day window for completion. On Tuesday and Wednesday, expert teams will connect the explosives packed into each floor. Simultaneously, they will recheck over 20,000 connections.
While the initial plan was to charge the towers alternatively from top to bottom, 16 teams of Edifice Engineering, the company hired to bring the towers down, and its South African partner Jet Demolition started with three floors of the 32-storey Apex, the taller of the two towers, and then focused entirely on the 29-storey Ceyane, completing its charging by August 17.
They switched back to Apex on August 17, covering the building in six days. There are 11 primary blast floors, where explosives have been packed into all columns, and seven secondary blast floors, which have 60% of the columns charged, in Apex. Ceyane has one less primary blast floor.
Mayur Mehta, project manager at Edifice Engineering, said, “We had kept a few days of buffer for the process. Moreover, our teams worked fast to meet the target. We need two-three days to re-examine all connections. Shock tubes containing explosives have already been connected with each other from one pillar to the other on floors. Tuesday onwards, teams will start connecting the explosives on each of the floors. This process is called trunking. They will be connected to a detonator on the day of the blast.”
Mehta added that from the team of 40 that has been working to charge the towers, only 10 would be involved from here on. “Of the 10, seven are from Jet Demolition, two are Indian blasters. The 10th person is me,” Mehta said.
The demolition of the towers, ordered by the Supreme Court, which ruled they were illegally built, is scheduled at 2.30pm next Sunday.
A Central Building Research Institute team, meanwhile, visited Emerald Court and examined structural retrofitting and repairs being done in the society’s basements. The team suggested putting scaffolding around some areas where water seepage was witnessed.
