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DEMOLITION

Watch: Danish silo demolition goes awry, damaging culture centre

A 53-metre tall silo fell the wrong way during demolition in the town of Vordingborg in southern Zealand on Friday, damaging a cultural centre that houses a library and music school.

Watch: Danish silo demolition goes awry, damaging culture centre
Photo: RASMUSSEN PER/Ritzau Scanpix

Nobody was injured during the incident, which was captured on film by a number of bystanders.

Onlookers can be heard shouting “no, no, no!” in the background as the silo begins to topple in the wrong direction after the initial controlled explosion.

Skip to around 1:50 in the below video to see the silo fall.

A corner of the Kulturarkaden centre in Vordingborg was destroyed by the falling building, Ritzau reports.

“This kind of thing should not happen, but I am first and foremost happy that nobody was injured,” the town’s mayor Mikael Smed said.

Smed was among those standing nearby to view the demolition.

“Fortunately, Kulturarkaden was within the area sealed off for safety purposes, so there was nobody in the building,” he told the news agency.

The mayor was on Friday unable to say when the damaged building would reopen.

“It looks like some offices in the corner of the building have suffered.

“It will be necessary to remove dust, glass and so on, and assessment of structural damage suffered by the building must also be made,” he said.

Costs of any necessary repairs to the centre will be covered by the demolition company’s insurance, according to Ritzau’s report.

The silo’s destruction will make space for a development project to include a hotel, housing, café and conference facilities in the harbour area.

Fire service volunteers worked on Friday evening to secure the damaged building, local media TV Øst reports.

An investigation is underway into what caused the demolition to go wrong.

READ ALSO: Iconic Copenhagen zoo elephant house to be demolished

BRITTANY

Pot of gold found in abandoned French house

A demolition team called in to tear down an abandoned house in western France this week struck gold - literally.

Pot of gold found in abandoned French house
600 Belgian gold coins dating to 1870 were found. StockImage/Depositphotos

At the house in the Brittany town of Pont-Aven the workers found a lead container that they initially took for a World War II artillery shell.

But then “they shook it and heard the sound of coins,” the head of Bat'isol construction company, Laurent Le Bihan, told AFP at the weekend.

Inside, they found 600 Belgian gold coins dating to 1870 and stamped with the effigy of King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909.

The value of the bounty, which the workers handed over to the police, is not yet known.

Based on the sums usually paid for such coins it could run to over €100,000 ($118,000), according to the regional Ouest-France newspaper.

Under French law, the proceeds should be divided 50-50 between the finders and those who own the land where it was found.

Le Bihan said the owner of the house “was not surprised” by the find as his grandfather was a coin collector.