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By Ashok Sharma

The Associated Press

NEW DELHI 鈥� Two apartment high-rises in India were leveled in a controlled demolition on Sunday after the country’s top court declared them illegal for violating building norms, officials said. The buildings, one nearly 328 feet tall, became India’s tallest to be razed to the ground.

More than 1,500 families vacated their apartments in the area more than seven hours before the towers crumbled inward. The 32-story and 29-story structures, which were being constructed by a private builder in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, were yet to be occupied.

鈥淟argely, everything is OK,鈥� said Ritu Maheshwari, a government administrator, after the demolition. 鈥淚t happened as expected.鈥�

The demolition was completed within seconds but followed a 12-year court battle between residents in the area and the builder, Supertech Limited. The Supreme Court found that the builder, in collusion with government officials, violated laws prohibiting construction within a certain distance from nearby buildings.

Construction of the two towers also was illegal, the Supreme Court said, because the builder did not receive mandatory consent from other apartment owners in the area.

Ahead of the demolition, the towers were surrounded by scaffolding, fences, barricades and special covers to block dust generated by approximately 88,000 tons of debris, officials said. Disposal of that debris will take three months.

Residents of units nearby were expected to return to the area Sunday evening after experts examined the impact of the demolition. Some apartments are located just 29.5 feet away from the blast site, and the required safe distance is 65.6 feet.

鈥淚t would come in the top five demolitions in the world in terms of height, volume, steel and tightness of the structure,鈥� said Utkarsh Mehta, a partner with Edifice Engineering, which brought down the building in collaboration with Jet Demolition from South Africa at a cost of $2.25 million.

Mehta said 7,716 pounds of explosives were drilled into thousands of holes in the columns and shears of the towers. Experts used the waterfall method of demolition in which one story collapses upon the next.

Joe Brikmann, director of Jet Demolition, said earlier he was confident no harm would come to the buildings adjacent to the demolished towers.

鈥淭he buildings in this area are in a high seismic zone (zone IV) and built to experience earthquakes, which are much stronger than vibrations from an implosion; we are confident that the implosion of the towers will not cause any damage to properties,鈥� Brikmann said, according to The Times of India newspaper.

Worldwide, the tallest building demolished with explosives was 541 feet tall. That event occurred in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Nov. 27, 2020, according to Guinness World Records.