Before blast, repairs start at Emerald Court

Following repeated pleas of residents living near the Supertech group’s twin towers in Noida’s Sector 93-A to conduct a structural audit of the nearby buildings and do the necessary repairs, and getting at least two reminders from the district administration to do the needful, a contractor has been hired to carry out repairs and retrofitting work at the basement of Emerald Court, especially around the towers closer to the twin towers

Following repeated pleas of residents living near the Supertech group’s twin towers in Noida’s Sector 93-A to conduct a structural audit of the nearby buildings and do the necessary repairs, and getting at least two reminders from the district administration to do the needful, a contractor has been hired to carry out repairs and retrofitting work at the basement of Emerald Court, especially around the towers closer to the twin towers.

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According to sources in the know of the matter, Supertech hired a Noida-based contractor to carry out the repairs. The company will have to complete most of the repair works before the charging of the twin towers begins on August 2.

Charging is the process of fixing explosives in the building that is to be demolished. The entire repair work will have to be finished, at least a week before the demolition of twin towers on August 21.

Neither Supertech nor the contractor could be reached for comment on the matter.

Officials from the Noida authority said repair works have started but refused to divulge any further details.

The Emerald Court Apartment Owners’ Association had earlier hired Delhi-based D and R Consultant to conduct a structural audit of their society, which found that several columns were critically damaged and needed to be reinforced before the blast. Since then, the AOA had been demanding that repairs be carried out by the developer, which refused to the needful even till a week ago.

The audit by D and R Consultant revealed that the strength of the building was not as per the structural drawings. While the design of the basement columns should have been M-15 grade concrete, it was just around M 8-13 for many columns. Here, ‘M’ stands for concrete mix as per Indian standard concrete grade.

Officials of D and R Consultant had noted that defects were found in at least 50% of the 500 basement columns of Emerald Court. There are about 2,200 columns in the basement, out of which 500 were selected for visual inspection in April and May. The audit report further stated that the quality of the material was sub-standard. Columns and beams had visual cracks on the surface with corroded reinforcements. The report recommended immediate retrofitting, strengthening of the deficient columns, apart from ensuring their stability.

“We surveyed 15 towers and over 500 columns. We realised that the strength of over 250 columns was not up to the mark. Of these, three towers are within 50m range of the twin towers. We have recommended that reinforcement be done at least for those towers before the blast,” said Revati Raman from D&R Consultant.

It is on the basis of the audit report prepared by D&R Consultant that repairs are being carried out in the columns falling within a 50-metre range of the critical zone from the twin towers.

President of Emerald Court AOA UBS Teotia said, “We have been informed that 40 critical columns have been selected for repairs. The company that carried out the structural audit has suggested three types of technology-- micro carbon, micro concreting and jacketing. Most of these columns are under three towers – Aspire 1, Aster 2 and Aster 3.”