One push of a button, three seconds of anxious waiting, and then the notorious Rahmede Viaduct sinks into the dust. About a demolition, which is a departure for the people in Sauerland, and a demolition expert who says: I’m not AC/DC.
An hour has passed since the big bang. The local celebrities, who were looking down into the Rahmede valley from a forest meadow, could hear over loudspeakers how blasting expert Michael Schneider counted down the countdown: “Three, two, one – ignition!” And then – nothing. Three seconds and what felt like an eternity passed before the dynamite exploded in the pillars of the bridge. The concrete buckled like broken matchsticks, for a moment the roadway of the A 45 hung sluggishly in the air – then the notorious structure disappeared in a dense cloud of dust.