Hayward Implosion Downs 12,500 Ton Building

A Hayward Implosion on Saturday saw the Warren Hill landmark destroyed in a spectacle which attracted more than 1,000 onlookers.

The 13-story building, located on the Cal State-East Bay campus, was imploded by a series of small controlled explosions, sending it crashing to the ground in a not unimpressive experiment.

Geological survey scientists strategically placed more than 600 seismographs inside concrete circles within a mile radius of the implosion. This was in order to measure and then simulate how the terrain might be affected in an earthquake.

Rufus Catchings, a USGS scientist spoke to reporters minutes after the Hayward implosion: “When that building dropped we should have gotten a nice, continuous signal for eight to 10 seconds,” The building fell amazingly quickly, within only 5 seconds.

The scientist count the area where the experiment took place to be at high risk in an earthquake. They estimate that there is a 63 percent chance that a major earthquake will hit that region within the net 30 years.

Catchings continued: “In the event of a large earthquake, often times it’s not just one break in the ground, it’s spread out over some distance. You’d kind of like to know where all these things are if you really want to understand the hazard.”

You won’t find many people sorry to see the Warren Hill landmark demolished, as it had a reputation as a bit of an eyesore. Brad Crooker, who took classes at Warren Hill on the 1970’s said: “I’m glad it’s going down. I thought it was ugly both from the inside and outside. There was no ventilation, and you couldn’t open the windows. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.”

The building where the Hayward implosion took place was declared the most unsafe building in the state of California, seismically speaking. In the event of an earthquake, it is thought anyone inside the structure would have been killed.