NEW DELHI — The Supertech twin towers in Noida were brought down Sunday in a massive explosion. The bringing down of the towers, lasting about 12 seconds, gives moral victory to residents of Supertech Emerald Court in Sector 93A after their nine-year court battle with realty firm Supertech.

With the demolition done, the next challenge for Noida authorities is to clean the mountain of debris generated due to the demolition. Officials involved with the operation had earlier said about 55,000 tons of debris was generated. It may take as much as three months to clear the debris. The waste will be dumped at designated areas.

The demolition exercise took place under a Rs.100 crore insurance policy. This should cover damage to adjacent buildings, if any. The premium and other costs have to be borne by Supertech. While the demolition project may cost upwards of Rs.20 crore, the loss of the towers — skeletal as they were — is estimated at more than Rs.50 crore.

The nearly 100-metre-high structures — taller than Delhi’s iconic Qutub Minar (73 meters) — were brought to the ground in seconds. Minutes after the demolition, the nearby buildings appeared to be safe. A detailed safety audit is expected later. The air quality and visibility was extremely low.

Close to 500 police and traffic personnel were deployed around Supertech’s twin towers in Noida, ahead of the demolition. The Noida-Greater Noida Expressway remained shut between 2.15 p.m. and 2.45 p.m., while a no-fly zone was instated over the city for drones.

Meanwhile, Realty firm Supertech on Sunday said that the twin towers were conducted as per the building plan approved by Noida development authorities and no deviations were made, news agency PTI reported.

Supertech added that the demolition of these two towers would not impact its other real estate projects, which will be delivered to homebuyers.

The towers — Ceyane (29 floors) and Apex (32 floors) — were part of the Emerald Court project of Supertech Ltd and were found to be in violation of multiple regulations regarding construction.

They were demolished via a ‘controlled implosion’ to ensure minimal damage to the surroundings.

The team behind the Supertech demolition in Noida now has two key tasks ahead: disposing of 80,000 tons of debris, and analyzing data from accelerometers, black boxes and other scales placed around the demolition site.

At the demolition site, 20 monitoring systems were set up by both Edifice Engineering, which handled the demolition, and Central Building Research Institute (CBRI).

Utkarsh Mehta, partner at Edifice Engineering, said, “We have recovered a few (of these systems). The data has been collected. It will take us 1-2 weeks to recover all the systems and collate the data.”

"We had multiple stakeholders and everyone had a different say. We listened to everyone...there were challenges. The fair end of project is that we had a great support from Noida authority and Noida police," Mehta said.

Twelve seconds is all it took for the Supertech twin towers in Noida’s sector 93A to crumble to the ground. Delayed for months, the demolition finally took place, in line with the directions of the Supreme Court, on Sunday for violating set rules, building regulations and fire safety norms.

As the towers came down at exactly 2.30 pm, after months of preparation, a plume of dust engulfed the area for 15 minutes.

"Our priority was that nobody gets hurt. There's no damage from ground vibration or structural issues. We had suspicions since one of the buildings is just 9 meters away but there's no damage. Our largest challenge was the robust structure of the twin towers.

“We are very happy with the results. There was one wall that was damaged but nothing else was affected. Everything worked out. It was a challenge since we had only 6 months to prepare for this," Joe Brinkmann from Jet Demolition, the firm that carried out the demolition, said.

"There's only a few buildings in the world that are 100 metres high. Also, it's that that such buildings have other buildings in such close proximity. I don't think it's been done this way before," Brinkmann added.

On a day when Supertech’s twin towers in Noida were demolished on orders from the Supreme Court, the ruling BJP and main opposition party Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh got involved in a war of words, with the BJP saying that the buildings were “a living example of corruption and anarchy” during Akhilesh Yadav’s SP regime.

In a tweet on Sunday, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya wrote, “The Twin Towers of Noida are a living example of corruption and anarchy during Akhilesh Yadav’s and SP’s tenure in power. Today, under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and under the BJP government, the building of corruption will be demolished. This is justice and rule of law.”

Meanwhile, realty firm Supertech on Sunday claimed that plans for the twin towers, that were demolished, were approved by the Noida authorities in 2009 and were strictly in accordance with the building bye laws that were in place at that time.

In a statement, the company said: “The Twin Towers Apex and Ceyane in Noida are a part of the Emerald Court Project at Sector 93A constructed on land allotted by Noida Authority.

“The building plans of the Project including the two towers were approved by the Noida Authority in 2009 which was strictly in accordance with the then prevailing Building Bye laws announced by the state government.

No deviation from the Building Plan was made and the Building was constructed after making full payment to the Authority.” — Agencies