Daily Archives: January 1, 2010

Everyone likes to see a good video of a large building being completely reduced to rubble.

This video goes one better.

The footage, taken on December 30, shows a 22-floor residential building being demolished in the city of Liuzhou in southern China.

Scroll down for video

So far so good: The building in Liuzhou, southern China, seconds before the planned demolition

We’re still ok: The initial blast successfully breaks the building into two parts

Er… that’s not looking so great: Half of the building tumbles sideways in a cloud of dust

Best laid plans: The other half of the building remains standing – but leaning precariously to the side

But disaster is narrowly averted when the demolition goes wrong.

Instead of crumbling into a contained heap of rubble, half of the building crashes sideways to the ground, narrowly averting disaster.

Even more alarmingly, the other half is left still standing – but leaning precariously to the side.

Not quite as planned: Another view catches the moment half the building goes down while the other half remains leaning

Shoppers in Liuzhou carry on, unperturbed by the dangerously leaning building

In video footage, onlookers can be heard shouting in awe as the blast is carried out.

The demolition failed due to technical reasons, the China Daily reported. Experts had intended for the building to break in to two parts – but the rest of the experiment had, clearly, gone awry.