A 116-metre-high (380 feet) skyscraper in Germany’s Frankfurt am Main was razed to the ground in 10 seconds flat in one of the largest-ever controlled building explosions in Europe.
Thousands of spectators gathered Sunday morning to watch the demolition of the former university tower AfE (or AfE Turm) in the center of Germany’s financial capital.
Some 950 kilograms of explosives were inserted into 1,500 holes drilled in the 32-story, 50,000-ton skyscraper in order to destroy it– making it the tallest-ever building in Europe to be demolished by a blast, Deutsche Welle reported.
In just about 10 seconds after the blast, the tower, built in 1972, vanished in a huge cloud of gray dust.
Barriers up to 6 meters high were erected a distance away from the tower to prevent any damage to nearby buildings. Also, engineers in charge of the operation blew up canisters with water along with the building to reduce the amount of dust produced by the explosion.
A 250-meter exclusion zone was set up around the skyscraper before it was brought down, and some surrounding streets were also closed, AP reported.
No injuries or damage to other buildings were reported.
The AfE Tower used to house the facilities of the department of social sciences and education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University until last year, when they were moved to a new campus. Initially, it was planned to demolish the skyscraper gradually, but after complaints from locals about lengthy and noisy work, authorities decided to blow it up with explosives.
Two new office towers will be constructed on the site.