Noida twin towers demolished: What will be the impact of dust on residents?

Supertech's illegal twin towers which are taller than the Qutub Minar were demolished on Sunday, August 28 The health impact of the resulting dust on residents is expected to be minimal as experts overseeing the demolition will take steps to control the impact.

According to Dr Mrinal Sircar, Head Pulmonology and Critical Care, Fortis Noida said, "When you demolish a big structure like that there will be dust and there would be some smoke because you are using explosives. So, the direction of the air matters. The direction of the wind should also be taken into consideration. Demolishing like this or rather an explosion happening in the open air is much safer than say underground mines."

Dr Sircar said that if this was something underground, where it won't get dissipated, in such scenarios like underground mines, and explosions, they use various exhaust techniques so that it's sewn out in the ambient air.

"The dust and gases will get diluted in the air and will get dispersed. The experts who are involved in such big demolitions will take care of all these things," Dr Sircar said.

He said that the evacuation is taking place and the idea is that people can come back safely after whatever poisoning it causes in the next few hours once it is diluted in the air.

"So those are the precautions which are taken. I believe people have taken precautions like putting sheets on top of the buildings etc. The direct impact of dust falling on that will probably be the only thing that will get stopped," Dr Sircar said on precautions. The demolition in Noida is scheduled to take place at 2.30 pm on Sunday. The demolition of the Apex (32 storeys) and Ceyane (29 storeys) towers would leave behind approximately 35,000 cubic metres of debris that would take at least three months to be cleared.

The go-ahead for demolishing the twin towers with explosives was given by the Supreme Court. The exercise was earlier supposed to start on August 21 but the court accepted the Noida Authority's request and extended its date of demolition to August 28.

The twin towers are set to be razed over grave violations of building norms. The top court had said that it was a result of "nefarious complicity" between the Noida Authority and Supertech and ordered that the company shall carry out the demolition at its own expense under the supervision of the Noida Authority and an expert body like the Central Building Research Institute.

The order had come on a batch of petitions filed by homebuyers for and against the April 11, 2014 verdict of the Allahabad High Court which had ordered razing of the two buildings within four months and the refund of money to apartment buyers. The Supreme Court has said that the date of demolition may be confirmed as August 28, with a "bandwidth of seven days" between August 29 to September 4, to take into account any marginal delay on account of technical reasons or weather conditions.