Hidden camera show uses near-miss wrecking ball to terrify the public.

In an age when the hidden camera TV show concept has been around for 50 years or more, Joe Public, remains every bit as gullible today as they were when Candid Camera first hit our screens.

How else do you explain the following individuals who clearly believe that the control of a crawler crane and wrecking ball is handed to any passer-by that happens along. That said, judging by some of the recent video footage featured here on DemolitionNews, maybe that isn’t so far from the truth!

Church forced to use handbells to mark Easter following large-scale metal theft,

In the latest example of escalating metal prices leading to unscrupulous activities, metal thieves have demolished a Nottingham church’s bell tower and stolen the bell.

Handbells were used instead to mark Easter at St Philip’s in Top Valley.

It is believed the bronze bell was stolen for its scrap value, estimated at around £100. Having a new one cast will cost between £3,000 and £5,000.

Read more here.

Dust complaints from residents force firm to change working practice.

A UK demolition company has revised its working practices following complaints about dust from an old foundry.

Libra Demolition Ltd is dismantling Lincoln Castings in Station Road, North Hykeham, where more than 300 homes will be built.

Residents had complained of black dust on vehicles and in homes and gardens. And some children have come home dirty with grime.

Officials from North Kesteven District Council served an abatement notice on the demolition company on April 13, to secure dust control measures.

Read more here.

Pharmaceutical giant to demolish part of its US headquarters.

AstraZeneca will demolish 450,000 square feet of laboratory space in three buildings at its North American headquarters campus off Concord Pike in Fairfax as part of its global restructuring, the drug giant has confirmed.

The three buildings account for a major chunk of the company’s Fairfax campus and house all of the company’s Delaware-based research efforts. The huge complex west of Concord Pike is only about a decade old.

The planned demolition follows news last year that AstraZeneca would end research into new psychiatric medicines and shutter its Delaware labs as part of an ongoing restructuring of its global research-and-development activities.

Newspaper reports claim contractor failed to alert authorities of demolition work.

A contractor that allegedly ruptured a water main, forcing a three-day shutdown of Pennsylvania’s Capitol complex, did not make a required phone call to give utilities and the city advance warning about the work, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News said it was unclear whether a call to the Pennsylvania One Call system, required for any projects that involve digging with power equipment, would have prevented the damage to the 36-inch pipe.

United Demolition & Excavating was doing site-preparation work on an industrial site owned by Harsco Corp. when the first rupture occurred Sunday. Crews repairing that break later discovered a separate tear in the main line. They completed a bypass of the damaged section on Wednesday, and city officials said Thursday the system was functioning properly.

Thousands of state employees whose jobs were deemed nonessential were given the day off or sent home early during the shutdown and put in their first full day of work for the week on Thursday. Gov. Corbett has said it was impossible to calculate the cost of the lost work time.

Read more here.

New Zealand authorities accused of bureacracy amidst post-quake demolition delays.

Just a few short weeks ago, New Zealand’s authorities stood accused of prematurely condemning a number of quake-damaged Christchurch buildings. Now, according to local newspaper reports, bureaucratic delays have left demolition equipment sitting idle within the central Christchurch cordon, slowing the earthquake recovery, demolition contractors say.

But Christchurch Central Labour MP Brendon Burns has called the comments “self-serving”. “The demolition companies are paid by the number of hours they run their machines and the amount of rubble they bring down,” he said. “Contractors imploring the work to start sooner seems a bit self-serving to me.”

Smith Crane and Construction managing director Tim Smith said owners of badly damaged buildings were pushing for demolition but often struggled to get approval. “Where a building is completely stuffed, how hard is it?”

He said the central city was scattered with idle diggers surrounded by buildings that needed to come down.

“There are excavators sitting everywhere doing nothing because nothing can get approved.” Smith said there was a financial motivation, but there was also genuine concern that the inner-city recovery was being held up. “If they don’t get on with it, the city is going to be closed for years,” he said.

One contractor said none of his 35 diggers in the central city was being used.

After some “cowboy” contractors had irresponsibly started knocking down buildings, Civil Defence had tightened the rules but had gone too far, he said.

Read more here.

Local group claims that demolition of Asarco plant began too soon.

A local environmental watchdog group is crying foul after they say a demolition began before it was supposed to. The group “citizens for environmental justice” says the demolition of the former asarco/encycle plant is bad for nearby residents and for all of Corpus Christi, and they’re demanding the demolition stop.

It’s not just that local watchdog group that’s upset about the demolition, the texas commission on environemntal quality or tceq is also directing the bankruptcy trustee in charge of the site to stop the demolition, until they approve the requisite plans.

The giant Heavy Decom high reach excavator has gone to work.

The team at Kocurek Excavators should feel like proud parents right about now. With the team from Heavy Decom International (HDI), they gave birth to a (very large) baby in the shape of a 200 tonne high reach excavator; they then nurtured it through an initial (and, apparently, fault-free) test period; and they have now seen The Beast takes it first steps, as the following video shows:

Amateur video shows power station implosion.

Earlier this week, a large part of the Methil power station in Fife, Scotland was imploded. We are still waiting for an official video of the implosion but, in the meantime, we can bring you this amateur footage which captures the plant’s final moments.

A new excavator simulator game is now available for iPhone and iPad users.

There are times when I become more aware of my age: running up the stairs, listening to what passes for music today, seeing footballers that are young enough to be my son. But never am I more acutely concious of the passage of time than when someone suggests that I play a video game.

Despite the fact that this is the very field of endeavour in which I began my journalistic career, the onset of middle age means that video games are about as natural to me as computer programming would be to the average caveman.

So, when asked to review a new excavator simulator game for the iPhone and iPad, we did what any right-minded, middle-aged Luddite would do. We called Jack Westwood, game savvy teenager and long-time DemolitionNews reader with a passion for construction equipment and got him to play it. Here’s what he had to say:

Excavator is a fantastic simulator for anybody who is interested in construction machinery.

The game is fantastically designed, it has great graphics and the physics are very realistic, driving a machine in the game is exactly the same to driving them in real life! Overall Excavator is well worth the money and can keep you occupied during those long train journeys. It costs around £1:00 and is well worth the small cost. There are regular updates and new machines being added every month or so. Highly recommended.

The game can be downloaded here.