An unconventional spectacle was experienced by British footballers and their fans during Sunday’s district match in the English town of Rugeley. Instead of the usual whistling of the refereeing match, the planned demolition of four cooling towers of a nearby coal-fired power plant interrupted. In the middle of the match, the players stood in disbelief, watching the massive towers fall to the ground in a matter of seconds. One of the fans filmed his extraordinary experience.
The football match of the district English competition was interrupted by the demolition of a coal-fired power plant. The massive cooling towers disappeared in five seconds. | Video: Reuters
The controlled demolition of the already defunct Rugeley power station in Staffordshire in the mid-west of England was planned by its owners for Sunday morning. At that moment, a district English competition match took place on a course just a few hundred meters from the power plant.
Footage of the demolition was first posted by one of the football fans on his Twitter. After the video on the social network received over half a million views in less than 24 hours, the world media also noticed it.
Each of the four cooling towers of the Rugeley coal-fired power plant was over 120 meters high. By controlled demolition, massive objects were torn down in just five seconds. Immediately after, clouds of smoke and smoke began to spread around. Some residents watched with interest the planned demolition in the streets of the town.
At its peak in the 1980s, Rugeley employed over 850 people and supplied power to more than half a million households. In 2016, it was closed after more than 50 years of operation. The current owners plan to use the land after the demolished power plant to build more than two thousand low-energy houses.
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