Nicolette Dirk
THE city’s various emergency service departments took advantage of yesterday’s implosion of the Tulip Hotel to brush up on emergency routines required at the scene of a collapsed building.
The 110kg of explosives used during the implosion was positioned over four floors of the building, and the entire building went down in under five seconds.
Following the demolition, a simulation of a search-and-rescue exercise was performed by the rescue team.
Police dogs and dummies were used by staff from the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service and Disaster Risk Management, the SAPS and the Breede Valley Fire and Rescue Service.
Cape Town Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Theo Layne said the emergency and rescue team seldom got the opportunity to simulate a rescue at a demolished building.
The 12-hour operation ended at 10pm to familiarise staff with a rescue situation carried out in the dark.
“The building was a bit limiting because it collapsed totally during the implosion. This is good for the demolition team, but it did not leave many pockets of the building for us to operate in. There are not many building demolitions in Cape Town that require a rescue team, but we always need to be prepared,” Layne said.
The new hotel that will be built on the site will be designed by Dexter Moran Associates, a London-based architectural firm. The hotel will be a dual-branded building. It will have 500 rooms in total, 300 of which will be three-star and 200 four-star.
Dexter Moran Associates founding director Dexter Moran said the design had been approved by the City of Cape Town and Cape Town History and Heritage.
“The old hotel was out of date and redundant. The new hotel will provide Cape Town with up-to-date visitor and business accommodation of a much-increased scale,” Moran said.
“The construction will take approximately 24 months.”