A major operation took place in southern India’s Telangana, as eight cooling towers in a thermal power station were demolished using implosion technology.

The incident took place at Kothagudem Thermal Power Station in Palvancha town of  Bhadradri Kothagudem district on August 5.

Visuals captured the cooling towers collapsing and disintegrating in mere seconds, tumbling like a deck of cards and sending up massive clouds of dust that resembled smoke. Police personnel were on-site, closely monitoring the demolition.

According to the reports, constructed between 1965 and 1978, the towers were dismantled by a company from Jaipur since they had outlasted their usefulness. The demolition began in January 2023 and was executed in two stages.Initially, four towers, each approximately 102 meters high, were demolished in the first phase. In the subsequent phase, four more towers, standing about 115 meters tall, were brought down. A team of 30 members from the demolition company carried out the process.

These towers, which had generated 720 MW of power for six decades, were decommissioned in December 2019 when they became obsolete.

The state government has plans to repurpose the area following the demolition.