After the Supreme Court's order in 2021, real estate developer Supertech's famous residential twin towers — Apex and Ceyane — in Noida's Sector 93-A are set to be demolished on the afternoon of August 28. The towers will be razed at 2:30 pm with explosives and will be the highest structure in India to be razed.
The twin towers were one of Supertech's famed projects that will now cease to exist. As the news made headlines, here's a look at what it took to build the towers and what is required to demolish them, in numbers.
Taller than the Qutub Minar
The twin towers in Noida are taller than Delhi's tallest monument the Qutub Minar. Both buildings are 100 metres tall and house 900 apartments. The floor area of the two towers adds up to a whopping 7.5 lakh sq ft. An NDTV report said that while both the towers were 40 stories tall, they had been reduced to 32 floors (Apex) and 29 floors (Ceyane) manually to manage the scale of the final demolition.
3,700 kgs of explosives
The demolition project will be carried out by Edifice Engineering, based in Mumbai, along with their South African partner firm Jet Demolitions.
More than 3,700kgs of explosives will be placed inside the building. NDTV reported that the Apex tower has 11 primary blast floors and the Ceyane tower has 10 primary blast floors.
Only 10 workers would be on the demolition site and work on the explosion.
Built in 3 years, gone in 10 seconds
Edifice Engineering partner Utkarsh Mehta told LiveMint that it will take nine to ten seconds for all of the explosives to detonate and bring the building down. A huge noise would be generated with vibrations that can be felt within a vicinity of 30 metres.
It took three years, from 2009 to 2021, for the the towers to be constructed. The explosion will leave behind approximately 35,000 cubic metres of debris, CNBCTV18 reported. The debris would be disposed of in adherence to the Construction and Demolition, Waste Management Rules, 2016.
Rs 20 crore for demolition
The project cost Rs 933 per square foot (sq ft) for construction. With an area of 7.5 lakh of sq ft, the total cost was around Rs 70 crore. The demolition will cost Supertech around Rs 20 crore.
The towers had more than 900 flats together, out of which, more than 600 flats got sold. These flat owners expect a refund from Supertech with 12 per cent interest from the time of the booking, as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The court also ordered Supertech to pay Rs 2 crore to the resident's welfare association for the harassment caused by the twin towers' construction, said reports.
5,000 residents and 200 pets will be affected
The neighbouring societies of Emerald Court and ATS Village will face much of the impact. In total, these societies consist of 1,396 flats and house around 5,000 residents, the Live Mint report said. All of these residents would be taken out to a safer location by 7 am. However, some residents had earlier said they would be leaving their homes on Saturday only, a day before the massive explosion of the neighbouring towers.
A radius of 250 metres have been marked as an exclusion zone for one side. This radius covers the neighbouring societies. For the explosion, the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway would be halted as well by 2 PM. Around 2,700 vehicles in the nearby societies would be removed as well, PTI reported.
The resident will also have to move an estimated 150 to 200 pets, the news agency said.
The RWA also informed that lights, elevators and water supply will be turned for the demolition. A group of residents told BOOM that they are worried about the safety of their homes.
Why Are The Twin Towers Getting Demolished?
The towers are being demolished on orders of the Supreme Court after it found that the tower violated building norms. The court held that the Noida Authority and Supertech engaged in "nefarious complicity". Therefore, the top court ordered Supertech to demolish the famed residential towers at its own expense.
The 'Supertech Emerald Court' was proposed to be built in 2004 at Noida's Sector 93-A. The building plan consisted of nine floors and 14 towers sanctioned by the Noida authority. But this plan was later revised and in 2012, the Noida authority checked the new plan. In the new plan, the height of the twin towers was fixed at 40 floors.
The Residents' Welfare Association (RWA) of the society moved to the Allahabad High Court stating that the building's construction was illegal. They claimed the project was against the UP Apartments Act of 2010 and also violated the minimum distance requirement. In 2014, the High Court directed Supertech to demolish the twin towers within a period of four months from its own pocket. Supertech was also ordered to refund the flat buyers' payments with an interest rate of 14%.
In August 2021, the Supreme Court upheld the order of the Allahabad High Court stating that the structure violated construction norms. This was based on the number of petitions submitted by homebuyers, who expressed their support and opposition to the Allahabad HC hearing.