Athlone Cooling Towers Imploded - The Two Fat Ladies' Last 'Song'

by Alison
(Pinelands, Capetown)

Our local Cape town skyline was altered forever yesterday - Sunday August 22, 2010 - when the Athlone cooling towers were demolished due to structural instability.

This was of particular interest to us as we live in Pinelands, one of the suburbs alongside the towers and the official 'watching' point from which the detonation button was pushed.

We could not believe the crowds - 10,000 odd people apparently. Some might say we need to get out more!

Pinelands has never seen such excitement before and is unlikely to see such again. It's generally a sleepy spot despite it's central location :)

The blast went off about 3 minutes earlier than the scheduled 12 noon and we were caught by surprise - all we got a shot of was the dustcloud that came afterwards.

Luckily in these days of YouTube I have found a *superb* video for you - thanks to Adrian Bottega - complete with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries' soundtrack and a slo-mo replay - really great job, Adrian.