A demolition company used some 500 kilograms of explosives to topple a 120-metre boiler house and later brought down a 125-metre cooling tower of a defunct coal-fired power station at Ibbenbüren in western Germany on Sunday.
The demolition in two stages, the first before noon and the second shortly afterwards, had gone according to plan, a company spokeswoman said. A crowd gathered to watch the spectacular event.
Around 830 residents from the surrounding area were evacuated to a central accommodation facility for the blast.
The site is to be made ready by the summer of 2026 for the construction of a substation to convert wind power generated on the North Sea for the German grid.
Around 150 blasting experts were involved in the operation, which was watched over by around 100 police and emergency service personnel.
The explosives were used to bring down the boiler house and stove for heating the air for the blast furnace. Four of 10 supports were first cut through, before explosives destroyed the remaining six. Water was used to reduce dust.
A steel cutting cable was used to topple the cooling tower, by cutting 21 large slits in the structure, measuring 11 metres in length and 50 centimetres in width. The structure then collapsed in controlled fashion as the tension in other cables attached to the tower was gradually raised.
The rubble is to be processed on site for recycling. Ibbenbüren went off-grid in 2021 as part Germany’s transition to renewables.
