Man Oversleeps After Missing Deadline of Towers' Demolition. Here's What Happened Next.
One man didn't get the memo.
Talk about your close calls: A man in India overslept and missed the deadline to move out of his apartment building. This was considered fairly crucial because two nearby towers were scheduled to be demolished within hours—the tallest structures ever taken down in the country—and residents of neighboring buildings were ordered to evacuate temporarily to ensure their safety. Read on to find out the major drama that went down before the towers did.
The twin-towered Noida Supertech complex had been condemned by India's Supreme Court last year. The towers (one 32 stories, the other 29) had been illegally constructed, starting in 2009. Residents of the nearby Emerald Court and ATS Village complexes were ordered to leave their homes for the day of the demolition, with the proviso that they'd be allowed back after inspectors gave the all-clear. Nearly 3,000 vehicles and 200 pets were also moved, according to DNA India. But one man either didn't get the memo, or forgot it. Keep reading to see the video.
Hours before the demolition on Sunday, authorities "went into a tizzy," as DNA India described it, after a guard alerted them that a man was sleeping in a top-floor apartment of a tower within the evacuation zone. People in those buildings had started moving out on Friday, with plans to temporarily relocate until the demolition was complete.
The man was discovered by a security guard around 7 a.m. "We got to know about it because of our double verification process for evacuation. It turned out that of all residents of the towers, one had not left. This resident, it turned out was asleep inside apartment and totally missed the evacuation deadline," Naresh Keswani, a member of the special task force, told PTI. "Somehow, the security guards managed to wake him up and he was also evacuated at just around 7 am."
The "double verification process" involved a sticker that evacuating residents were to put on their doors when they left, followed by a follow-up check by security. The snoozy resident apparently fell down somewhere along the line. "It was because of this double step verification that this sleeping resident was identified in time and safely moved out," said Keswani.
The demolition proceeded according to plan, DNA India reported, as more than 8,100 pounds of explosives reduced the towers to rubble within nine seconds—80,000 pounds of rubble, to be precise, which experts estimate will take three months to haul away. No neighboring buildings were damaged.
