An explosive-free controlled demolition of the cooling tower at the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant in Germany was successfully carried out Tuesday.

Built between 1975 to 1986 and situated on the river Rhine, the plant’s 80-metre (262-foot) high cooling tower, which had been a local landmark for decades, disappeared into dust in a matter of seconds.

Several slits were cut in the concrete shell on Monday to ensure a total but controlled inward collapse.

Then, one-by-one, roughly half of the tower’s internal supports were slowly removed using remote-controlled excavators before the final controlled demolition was carried out at approximately 2:25 pm local time.

The plant was shut down in September 1988, after only three-years in operation, but the full decommissioning and demolition process proved rather lengthy in the end.

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