HYDERABAD: All the six floors of the front portion of the fire-ravaged Deccan Knitwear Sports Accessories (Deccan Corporate Building) at Minister’s Road in Secunderabad came down crashing to the ground on Tuesday afternoon, marking the completion of its demolition process.
With government officials already evacuating residents from the nearby houses and other commercial structures, no one was hurt when the structure came down. Due to the crashing of the structure, a thick cloud of dust enveloped the high reach demolition excavator and the surrounding places for a few minutes. The entire structure could be razed by targeting critical locations of the building. One more fire-hit structure next to the demolished site will also be pulled down soon after clearing the accumulated debris from the site.
The front portion of the ‘L’ shaped commercial complex has been under demolition for the past six days following a major fire mishap that gutted the entire structure on January 19 resulting in the death of three persons. When the building came crashing down, no one was injured as people from the place had been evacuated before the demolition process began last Thursday.
GHMC officials said that pulling down the entire structure was possible by targeting critical locations. For the last few days, they had been working on the site and a substantial portion of the building were demolished earlier such as slabs and walls and the tearing of beams and columns of the building. Officials were expecting that the structure was about to collapse anytime since the roof slabs and walls of the structure were demolished.
Another fire-hit commercial building next to the demolished site will also be pulled down in the next few days after clearing the piled up debris from the site to the C&D plant, nearly 20,000 tonnes of debris has been piled at the site and the same will be shifted, officials added.
The demolition was taken up on the advice of the NIT Warangal experts who found that the structural stability of the building had turned weak. Meanwhile, slum-dwellers who reside nearby, felicitated the operator of the excavator, Subhashan Sahani for carrying out a smooth demolition. They garlanded him and offered him sweets.