Huge
blast in Shenzhen
Huanggang - Shenzhen,
China
Fifteen buildings toppled in a demolition project in Yunong Village near the Huanggang
Checkpoint on Sunday (May 22 2005).
The demolition, dubbed "China's
No. 1 blast" by Chinese media, covered an area of 51,000 square meters,
the largest ever in China.
The project targeted 16 buildings above eight floors, the biggest number of
high buildings to be blasted in one operation in China.
Sunday's controlled explosion only toppled 15 buildings and partly damaged
one. Authorities planned to pull down the remaining building with bulldozers
within 24 hours. The area around the building was sealed off.
"The explosion was very successful although one building was not knocked
down," an explosion expert told a press conference after the explosion.
The 15 buildings were demolished within 15 seconds. Nearly 10,000 people were
evacuated, and no one was injured.
The Lok Ma Chou Bridge linking Hong
Kong and Shenzhen was closed for 35 minutes during the
explosion.
The government started demolishing old buildings in Yunong Village on March 8 to build the
community into a better one. Before the explosion, 90 old buildings there had
been dismantled.
A new Yunong
Village will be built
at the site of the old village, and 250 residents will move into new homes in
several months.
Yunong
Village used to be charicterized by "hand-shake" buildings, which
are so close that neighbors can shakes hands from
their windows.
The rush to build high buildings in the village started in the 1980s when
migrants flooding into the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone were looking for
rented flats. Many of the buildings were built without government approval.
Poor ventilation and security in such buildings were always a headache for
the government.
The municipal government launched the "Action Combing" campaign in
March 2004 to rid the special economic zone of all illegal buildings within
two years.
But the government's efforts to get rid of the illegal buildings had suffered
repeated setbacks, with new ones emerged while old
ones being dismantled.
Yunong
Village's rush to build
high buildings accelerated in 2004. Some 37 high buildings were illegally
built in the village after August 2004, although 52 old buildings were
dismantled during the period.
Yunong
Village was the epitome
of Shenzhen's efforts to transform the urban villages, said a government
official.
