By Chantelle Benjamin

Johannesburg residents flocked on Sunday to see the implosion of four Braamfontein buildings in the Park Station precinct to make way for the Gautrain rail project.

The blast, which took seven seconds and involved more than 3,000 charges, was the biggest single surface blast of the project to date. It took nearly a month-and-a-half to prepare for, said Gautrain project leader Jack van der Merwe.

The implosion of the multistorey buildings, which went off without a hitch, was greeted with a cheer by the crowd. Dust from the blast spread for several blocks. Visibility was reduced for nearly 10 minutes.

Mike Perkin, explosives manager and founder of Wreckers, the company that carried out the implosion, said yesterday he was anxious in the minutes before the blast. "It all went according to plan, but you are always nervous on an operation like this because there is always something that can go wrong."

Perkin said it was found during the blast preparation that there were steel columns in some of the buildings to support large safes. "These had to be taken into consideration when setting the charges."

The buildings destroyed on Sunday, in a block bound by Smit, Wolmarans, Eloff and Joubert streets, were Salstaff, Spoornet's old human resources office, the private Mentor College, the Sherwood Heights residential building and an office block used by Momentum.

Clearing of the site began immediately, and all roads around it are expected to be open by Monday morning. The site is expected to take about three weeks to clear.

The station, which is expected to take 54 months to complete, will be 20m underground and will be topped by a seven-storey parkade. A large paved area at street level for pedestrians will link the Gautrain station to Park Station.

Road upgrades and diversions will now start in the area, as will work on the station's foundations. Between May and July, work will begin on a single-track tunnel.

Van der Merwe said the underground station, like most of the work on the Gautrain, would be a "cut and cover" operation, which was cheaper than tunnelling. "We dig a hole and then build the structure and fill it in on top."

Bombela will be working on seven sites simultaneously to complete the project in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Excavation for the Rosebank station, under Oxford Road, is expected to begin between May and July. The area is already seeing the demolition of buildings.

At the Sandton station site, demolition of buildings will take place between now and April.

Work will also start this month in Midrand, Centurion and Pretoria.
 

Business Day

 
 
 
 
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge