Mounting deaths and destruction paint a horrific landscape
The Rahmede Valley Bridge in Lüdenscheid, Germany, was demolished on May 7, 2023, using 330 lbs (150 kgs) of explosives. The demolished motorway bridge was completed in 1968, but had been closed for 17 months prior its demolition due to safety reasons.
The demolition of the Pruitt–Igoe Housing Projects in St. Louis, Missouri, began in 1972 and was completed in 1976. First occupied in 1954, conditions in Pruitt–Igoe began to deteriorate soon after completion, and by 1970 more than two-thirds of the complex was vacant. The architect, Minoru Yamasaki, is best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City.
The Marlborough-Blenheim hotel was a historic resort hotel property in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Opened in 1906, it operated until 1977. It was demolished using explosives, a project completed in January 1979. A clip of the demolition of the main dome of the hotel is featured in the video for Bruce Springsteen's song 'Atlantic City.'
Several buildings in Shenzhen's Huanggang District were toppled simultaneously in a series of controlled implosions on May 22, 2005. They were demolished as part of a redevelopment project to expand the southern Chinese city's port area.
The Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, was imploded on November 6, 2005, to make way for a high-tech biocontainment research lab. The building was the largest private hospital in the world until the late 1980s, and it's here that Elvis Presley was pronounced dead on August 16, 1977.
Infamous gangsters Bonnie and Clyde were among the guests of the historic, 1920s-era Baker Hotel in Dallas, Texas, which was demolished in seconds on June 29, 1980, after being rigged with explosives.
The end of a sporting era came to pass with the demolition of the Kingdome on March 26, 2000, in Seattle, Washington. The stadium, built in 1976, played host to the NFL's Seahawks, MLB's Mariners, and briefly to the NBA's SuperSonics.
For 30 years, from 1984 to 2014, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino loomed large over the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. On February 17, 2021, explosive charges brought down the one-time jewel of former President Donald Trump's casino empire.
"Sin City" lost another historic leisure entertainment facility with the demolition of the Aladdin Hotel and Casino on April 27, 1998. The property was razed to make room for construction of the new Aladdin resort.
The Georgia Dome, former home of the Atlanta Falcons and the scene of several historic sporting events, was imploded on November 20, 2017. The landmark stadium was flattened in less than 20 seconds.
Building demolition often draws sizeable crowds of spectators. But on August 28, 2022, in Noida, India, traffic was brought to a standstill as hundreds gathered to watch a controlled implosion demolish the city's incomplete residential Supertech Twin Towers complex. They were the tallest structures in India to be voluntarily demolished.
In the wake of the devastation visited upon the city of Kahramanmaras by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023, nine heavily damaged 15-storey buildings had to be demolished using synchronized explosives. More than 50,700 people were killed, and 107,000 injured, in the quake.
The blasting of the chimney of the Meirama thermal power plant took place on March 1, 2023, in Cerceda, A Coruña, in Spain. The chimney had been part of the landscape for over 40 years. Meirama power plant had been disconnected from the country's electricity grid since June 30, 2020.
Decommissioned in 2013, the Wallerawang Power Station in New South Wales finally bit the dust on November 24, 2021. Low energy demand and high operating costs were cited as the reasons for its downfall.
Despite being designated a Grade II listed building by Historic England, the Dorman Long Tower, seen here on the right of the photograph, was demolished along with the remainder of the former Redcar steelworks site at Teesside on September 19, 2021.
On May 13, 2024, demolition crews conducted a controlled demolition of a section of the Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the MV Dali container ship. The bridge, a major transit route into the busy port of Baltimore, collapsed on March 26 when the vessel lost power and collided into a support column, killing six roadway construction workers.
As part of Germany's ongoing policy to shut all nuclear power plants down by 2022 (a political decision made after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011), Grafenrheinfeld was decommissioned in 2015. Its cooling towers were imploded on August 16, 2024.
Explosive shocks climb up the 600-ft-high (182 m) chimney stack at Longannet Power Station in Fife as it is brought down by controlled explosion. Demolished on December 9, 2021, this was the last coal-fired power station in Scotland.
The Landmark Hotel, built in 1961 and once owned by Howard Hughes, was demolished in spectacular fashion on November 7, 1995. It was leveled to increase outside exhibition space for the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Condemned after asbestos was found throughout its structure, and having gained a reputation for anti-social crime, the Red Road Flats high-rise apartment complex in Glasgow, Scotland, was demolished by use of controlled explosives. All eight multi-story blocks were razed to the ground.
On June 28, 2019, pylons of the collapsed Morandi road viaduct in Genoa, Italy, were demolished with a controlled dynamite explosion. The viaduct collapsed on August 14, 2018, causing the death of 43 people.
Sources: (The Independent) (The Guardian)
See also: The world's most remarkable bridges
On January 15, 2018, a partially constructed bridge in Chirajara near Bogotá in Colombia, collapsed, killing at least 10 workers and injuring several more. Left structurally unsafe, the bridge was subsequently demolished during a controlled implosion on July 11.
After being warned of the unsafe nature of the Long Island Bridge that connected Long Island to Moon Island in Boston Harbor, authorities took the decision to demolish the structure in January 2015 using a series of controlled explosions.
Opened in 1970 and once home to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pittsburgh Pirates, Three Rivers Stadium met its match on February 11, 2001. Both teams moved into newly-built dedicated stadiums.
Dust and smoke rise as Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo is demolished on December 8, 2002. The site of a 1992 massacre that left 111 dead was collapsed after 46 years of operation in the Brazilian city.
On July 14, 2016, in an effort to disperse surging flood water, authorities in Wuhan, in China's Hubei Province, blew up a levee separating Liangzi Lake and Niushan Lake using high explosives.
The Three Gorges Hotel and the 32-storey passenger terminal of Chongqing port were demolished in a matter of minutes in controlled explosions to make way for new skyscrapers on August 31, 2012.
Beirut's landmark Hilton Hotel was demolished on July 14, 2002, to make way for a new five-star hotel property. The building, which had stood unfinished throughout the country's 15-year civil war, was just completed when the conflict broke out in April 1975, leaving it empty and unused in one of the most dangerous zones of the city center at the time.
The remaining structures of the Riviera Hotel & Casino and Monaco Tower were imploded on August 16, 2016, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The famous 60-year-old Las Vegas Strip resort closed in May 2015, its demolition also serving to make room to expand the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The demolition of a building is often carried out using a controlled explosion to implode the property. This way the structure collapses on itself in a matter of seconds, minimizing the physical damage to its immediate surroundings. It's a method of destruction that's been used for decades to bring down condemned high-rises, bridges, hotels, power plants, stadiums, and even prisons. And the sight of a building blasted to the ground in a heap of dust and debris can be quite dramatic. So, just how visually impressive is the explosive art of demolition?
Click through, because what goes up sometimes has to come down!
The explosive art of demolition
Enormous structures destroyed through precision demolition techniques
LIFESTYLE Civil engineering
The demolition of a building is often carried out using a controlled explosion to implode the property. This way the structure collapses on itself in a matter of seconds, minimizing the physical damage to its immediate surroundings. It's a method of destruction that's been used for decades to bring down condemned high-rises, bridges, hotels, power plants, stadiums, and even prisons. And the sight of a building blasted to the ground in a heap of dust and debris can be quite dramatic. So, just how visually impressive is the explosive art of demolition?
Click through, because what goes up sometimes has to come down!