Reduced To Rubble: 68 Diggers Demolish Flyover In Dramatic Night-Time Footage

This is the spectacular scene as dozens of diggers went to work demolishing a 500m flyover.

Aerial footage captured the night-time wrecking project.

The 500m (1,640ft) Yonghe Gate Flyover in Nanchang, the capital of East China’s Jiangxi Province, was built in 1992 during an infrastructure boom, but officials decided it was unable to keep up with the growing population.

No fewer than 68 diggers, as well as dozens of other vehicles, were dispatched to the elevated road and worked through the night to raze the structure to the ground.

The diggers line up to carry out the destruction job

Almost 70 machines were brought in to demolish the flyover

Footage shows the heavy-duty machines forming two queues and pounding away at the flyover, which was reduced to rubble within hours.

The 14.8m-wide motorway, which covered some 6,180 sq m, was named after Nanchang City’s former ancient Yonghe Gate.

At the height of its use, the road carried around 86,000 vehicles every day, with the number reaching 100,000 on public holidays.

But with an estimated 750,000 vehicles currently in Nanchang, the flyover connecting the city’s northern and southern suburbs is often prone to traffic jams due to a lack of exits.

The footage makes for dramatic viewing as the diggers pound the road

It will now make way for Nanchang Metro’s new Line 2, reports said, construction for which is expected to begin shortly.

After officials announced the last day of the flyover’s two-decade tenure, citizens mostly stayed away from the road and instead opted to take photographs and pose for selfies before and during the demolition works.

Pictures from CEN