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| Demolition for landmark building - 16/11/2004 |
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A major Belfast landmark is to be demolished on Sunday in a massive city centre explosion. The 19-storey Churchill House office block will come down to make way for a £300m retail and leisure complex. Destruction of the building, which went up in the 1960s, has caused a few problems for the Yorkshire-based company carrying out the demolition.
Senior explosives expert Dick Green said that originally the building was just one metre from its neighbour.
Tight space
Mr Green, from the Controlled Demolition Group, said:
"Even with all our technical expertise, it is very difficult to drop 10,000 tonnes of rubble without some of it going backwards."
His company has demolished bigger buildings, but few have been taken down in such a tight space. Mr Green said:
"There is about 90kg of explosives positioned throughout the building, which may sound a lot, but it is spread between 2,500 individual charges, so each charge is very small.
"When we first came on site, the building was situated about one metre from the next building. We have extended that gap to about 10 metres by taking some of the building down.
"But it is still important that we throw the building away from the ones we are trying to protect.
"We are doing that by delaying the charges from one end to the other.
"At one end we start with instantaneous charges and over two seconds we will delay it through the building so it pulls the right way."
The building, which has housed BT and government departments, is being demolished to make way for the new Victoria Square shopping centre, due to open in 2007. Alex Steele was a structural engineer when the building was put up in the 1960s.
"I'm not happy. I thought it would be here long after I was," he said.
"But that's progress, I suppose, and you just have to suffer it."
Dust and noise
However, Alex said he would be present at the demolition and was "trying to book a good seat".
The demolition on Sunday at 1000 GMT is expected to draw a large number of spectators. But with large sections of the city centre sealed off, the best views will be from a distance. Ken Logan from the Health and Safety Executive said:
"There's a fascination with looking at these kind of operations, but you are better to stay back. It keeps you out of the dust and noise as well.
"If you come too close, one you will be restricted from getting too close to the building by the exclusion zone, and two, you will not see the building itself because you will be too close." |
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