Noida Supertech twin towers: Taken down after 10-year battle

New Delhi, August 28

It took a mere nine seconds for the illegal Supertech twin towers — Apex and Ceyane — to be reduced to a pile of dust and rubble using a controlled implosion technique with over 3,700 kg of explosives in Noida’s Sector 93A today.

Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering partnered with South Africa’s Jet Demolitions to carry out the demolition a year after the Supreme Court order. Jet Demolitions had executed the implosion of the 108-metre-tall Bank of Lisbon building in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November 2019.

The towers, about 100 metres high, had 915 flats, 21 shops and two basements proposed and were taller than Delhi’s iconic Qutub Minar. At the time of the demolition, the Apex tower had 32 floors and Ceyane tower 29 floors. These were under construction since 2009 within the Supertech Emerald Court housing society. The residents moved the court in 2012. The nearby buildings appeared safe, though a safety audit is to be conducted soon.

The local Noida Authority, which had approved the construction plan and the building maps in the first place, oversaw the demolition exercise, which had been in planning for almost a year now.

The only other precedent of high-rise structures in India being demolished are four housing complexes in Maradu in Kochi, Kerala, in January 2020 in compliance with orders of the Supreme Court, which had held the 18-20 storey buildings to be illegal as these had been built in violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone norms.