Explosives experts combine to fell 54 metre PET Polymers building.

Yesterday morning, when most Brits were still pawing over the latest newspaper reports of the horsemeat in burgers furore, the joint forces of InDex, SES and Libra Demolition were taking down a 54 metre concrete-encased steel column and beam structure that stood on the site of a 1974 disaster that will live long in the memory of those in and around the town of Flixborough.

On 1 June 1974, a chemical explosion ripped through what was then a Nypro UK plant with the 60 gigajoule force of 15 tonnes of TNT. The blast killed all 18 employees in the nearby control room. Nine other site workers were killed, and a delivery driver died of a heart attack in his cab. Observers have said that had the explosion occurred on a weekday it is likely that more than 500 plant employees would have been killed. Resulting fires raged in the area for over 10 days. It was Britain’s biggest peacetime explosion until the 2005 Buncefield fire.

Explosives veteran and IndEx main man Dick Green says the team used 45 kg of explosives to fell the building.

Town hall submits plans to demolish black box and Telegraph House

Plans have been submitted to demolish the bus station and ‘Black Box’ in the town centre.

The council has put together proposals to tear down the two buildings as well as Telegraph House.

The applications, submitted last week, are part of the wider £100m redevelopment of the town centre and comes following the completion of the new council offices.

According to the application the seven-storey Telegraph House, on Baillie Street, will be stripped and have asbestos removed before being demolished to ground level.

And the demolition of the 15-floored Black Box, which is used by existing council staff, would also include the removal of the enclosed footbridge linking the Municipal Offices to The Wheatsheaf Centre.

Once all three buildings have been demolished they must be left clear and tidy for redevelopment.

Read more here.

Ohio University will demolish historic building

Ohio University officials say they’re going ahead with the demolition of an historic campus building that student folklore suggests is haunted.

Preservationists had been trying to persuade the university to spare the 88-year-old Ridges Building 26, or old Beacon School. It was built as a tuberculosis ward to a historically significant state mental hospital that operated on the property for more than a century beginning in 1868.

The building is empty, and OU has said it is an “attractive nuisance,” frequently subject to trespassing and vandalism.

Read more here.

As the UK and US continue to freeze, here’s your chance to wrap up for free.

In conjunction with UK Caterpillar dealer Finning UK and Ireland and to celebrate the start of the Coldest Journey polar expedition, we are offering one lucky reader the chance to win a Caterpillar jacket to keep them warm in the cold weather.

For your chance to win, just answer the following question:

The expedition is utilising a Mobile Vehicle Landtrain comprising a pair of modified Caterpillar dozers. But which specific model are they?

Please email your entries to manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk. Competition closes on 28 February 2013. The winner will be selected at random from the correct answers. The winner will be announced in the next edition.

Further information on the coldest journey visit www.ourcoldestjourney.com

Video captures demolition of Haitian landmark destroyed by quake.

It was a project that divided public opinion. While some claimed that the demolition of the presidential palace was a symbolic step on the road to recovery for the island nation of Haiti, others claimed that the money would have been better spent helping the hundreds of thousands of islanders rendered homeless by the devastating quake that tore through the country on 12 January 2010.

Either way, the video of the project makes for interesting viewing.

Former boiler house latest to fall to blast.

The latest portion of the Inverkip Power Station in Argyll, Scotland to succumb to implosion fell yesterday afternoon as explosives experts dropped the boiler house.

Inverkip Power Station Demolition of Boiler House – 06 February 2013 from Kayakacrossthewater on Vimeo.

Low-cost carrier hub will make way for Singapore’s fourth airport terminal.

Demolition started on Friday on Singapore’s Budget Terminal to make way for the country’s fourth airport terminal.

Work to tear down the low-cost carrier hub is expected be completed by June. This will then be followed by the construction of a new Terminal 4 at Changi Airport.

Not everything will go to waste as parts of the old facility will be re-used and recycled, said Robin Goh, assistant vice president of corporate and marketing communications at Changi Airport Group.

Mr Goh said: “We are adopting strict green measures when it comes to demolishing the Budget Terminal. For example, there is a lot of salvaging of equipment, air-con compressors and of course, the moving of our automated immigration gates over to Terminal Two. We are also relocating the solar panels found at Budget Terminal to Terminal Three.”

Terminal Four will boost Changi Airport’s yearly passenger handling capacity from more than 70 million passengers to over 80 million passengers.

Demolition kick starts £40 million Weston-super-Mare redevelopment

Major demolition work has started on Weston-super-Mare’s dilapidated Dolphin Square as part of a £40 million redevelopment of the site.

Excavators moved in yesterday to begin the demolition of Somerset House – the former North Somerset Council offices – and the multi-storey car park.

It is envisaged the whole site including the flats and shopping complex, which was built in the 1960s, will be cleared by the summer for development work to start.
A number of national retailers, including Vue Cinemas, First Bowl, Nandos, Harvester, Pizza Express, Prezzo and Real China have already signed up to the scheme.

Read more here.

Third blast of six drops another portion of New Jersey’s Passaic Bridge.

The demolition of the old Route 3 Passaic River bridge continued Monday with a third explosion.

Monday was the third of a planned six explosions. The Department of Transportation had originally planned five, spokesman Timothy Greeley said.

Landmark Australian dock crane facing demolition.

Vertikal.net, arbiter of all things crane-related, is reporting that Australia’s federal government has proposed scrapping the landmark hammerhead crane in Sydney.

A report by the department of defence report proposes scrapping the 250 tonne crane which has been in its current location at the Garden Island Naval Base since 1951.

The crane’s removal will free up additional berths which the department says will be needed later this year. The crane, which has not been used since 1996, reportedly costs $770,000 a year to maintain and yet still poses a safety risk. A rusted chunk of steel fell from the crane in 2007.

Read more here.