The Kurri Kurri skyline has a new look after the three iconic stacks at the Hydro Aluminium smelter came down on Thursday morning.
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Hydro confirmed last month the two smaller stacks, one tall stack and the main water tower that provide the recognisable silhouette to the former smelter, standing at 70 metres high, 140 metres high and 55 metres high, would be brought down with engineered and controlled explosive charges.
Mercury reporter Meg Francis watched the first stack fall from the balcony at the Chelmsford Hotel, and the other two stacks fell a short time later.
People are urged not to approach the site during the demolition period for safety reasons.
The larger demolition project is being undertaken by CMA Contracting, with the stack demolition sub-contracted to Precision Demolition, who have successfully undertaken a significant number of similar stack demolition projects around Australia.
The smelter closed in 2014 and Hydro has been working on remediating the 2000-hectare site, and preparing it for sale, since then.