Liblice radio masts near Prague to be demolished by controlled blast

The two tall radio masts of the Liblice B transmitter near Český Brod will be dismantled by a controlled blast of the steel cables that hold the towers upright. According to the owner of the site, České Radiokomunikace (CRA), both structures will come down on the same day, and the clean-up will last until November.

Preparations are in full swing. The demolition company took over the masts on Monday, and the next day CRA announced that the lights on both masts had been switched off that morning and then removed, so that the lamp covers would not shatter on impact and scatter shards around the transmitter.

A safety perimeter has been set up around the complex, police will keep order, and part of the road to the transmitter will be closed. Owners of nearby plots were already warned in September not to enter the marked zones during the work. The event is expected to draw many onlookers, which could cause problems for local traffic.

Why the masts could not be saved

The last broadcast from Liblice went out last spring, after which the transmitters fell silent: the masts were no longer needed by CRA as their owner. The blast was the last resort. The company did not want to demolish the site in the first place and negotiated with a number of institutions that might take it over: it approached ministries and private firms, and ideas were floated of turning the masts into a tourist attraction or an observation tower. In the end, all the ideas were dropped and nobody showed any interest in operating them.

The offer included both masts, the anchor system, the cables, two lifts and the 1955 antenna building. The new owner would have been responsible for the technical condition, repairs and the aviation warning lights. The most urgent job would have been the complete replacement of the load-bearing cables, along with renewing the anti-corrosion protection and repairing or modernising the lifts inside the masts. The most essential work was estimated at around CZK 170 million.

For locals, the masts are a prominent part of the Český Brod landscape, a landmark and a memory of the people who worked at the transmitting complex. In recent days, enthusiasts and radio amateurs from all over Czechia have been coming to say goodbye.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz