As an antidote to the madness and mayhem I subjected you all to with my idiots with chainsaws post, here is ten minutes of controlled demolition of decommissioned water towers.

This is a great example of professionals knowing what they're doing as these demolition engineers land the towers between buildings, next to parked cars, etc. So many amazing things here: the crunching, booming sounds of the crashes, the great, billowing clouds of rust that plume from the tanks as they crack open, the grace (or not) of the descents. Read the rest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc4wQICHcQM

Given the crushing strength of this machine and the way large chunks of concrete balance atop distressed rebar, this worker might want to consider goggles and not turning his back on the machine. Read the rest

Saturation divers are specialized workers doing construction or demolition hundreds of feet below the water's surface. This detailed report gives a sense of what it's like to have a grueling routine where a tiny mistake could mean a quick and painful death. Read the rest

Heavy rains on the west coast have caused rockslides like this behemoth blocking an Oregon highway south of Eugene. Oregon DOT set up a camera as they blasted it into manageable chunks.

Spoiler: it went way better than Oregon's exploding whale...

PS: here's the "blowed up real good" reference if you're scratching your head.

• 200-ton rock blown up on Oregon highway (The Oregonian) Read the rest

A large crowd came out to watch The Broadway Bridge in Little Rock, Arkansas be demolished. Either the bridge builders were very good, or the demolition team was very bad (maybe both), because the bridge withstood an impressive explosion. Read the rest

Most of them are already broken, by the looks of it. But many of our gadget-demolishing heroes are obviously just too dumb to realize the residual value of old phones, so it's still pretty satisfying to watch . [Digg]

Read the rest