Vertical drop ball preferable to “Aussies or Yanks” says New Zealand demolition man.
A demolition expert believes Christchurch’s tallest hotel, the Grand Chancellor, will probably have to be knocked down by dropping a wrecking ball through the roof above its 26 accommodation floors.
“It will have to be done straight away – it’s not the sort where you can actually deconstruct it, because it is leaning,” said Demolition and Asbestos Association president Diana Stil.
Stil is in Christchurch to join other industry experts in advising civil defence authorities on how to clear central Christchurch of earthquake debris.
“When I saw it last night it was very unstable. You can’t load it – it’s already leaning, collapsing on one side – so the scenario of a ball and crane is probably the safest as that means there is no human exposure. We believe it can’t be saved, but that’s up to construction engineers.”
Alec Burrell, of Auckland’s Burrell Demolition, said it was unlikely that controlled explosives could be used to bring down the building because that would involve long preparations requiring people to enter the building to lay them.
“But at this stage no decision can be made until things have stopped moving,” he said. “Maybe it will be possible to take off the damaged side floor-by-floor and then rebuild it on new piles. I have no idea, but it would be a lot cheaper than mowing the whole thing down and starting again. Until the engineers are allowed a proper look at it nothing can be done – it might look 10 times worse than it is.”
Mr Burrell said local contractors and structural engineers would be well up to the challenge of dealing with the building – a task which would be far more straightforward than the Newmarket motorway viaduct project.
“What concerns us is the Aussies or Yanks may say nobody around here can do it and they’ll bring in a bunch of people and God help us.”
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