54 FULLY FOCUSED
MARTIN HOPFE, explosives expert, has demolished over 500 buildings
Just before the blast I feel like the loneliest person on the planet – notwithstanding the constant walkie-talkie contact with my colleagues and the police. Up to 40,000 bystanders may be waiting with bated breath in the cordoned-off roads nearby. It’s at this moment, this threshold, that the fear of something going wrong is allayed by the realization that it is too late to intervene. As soon as the detonator button has been pressed, there is no going back. I alone have to cope with this feeling of limbo. Of course if we are demolishing a building we will have been making painstaking calculations for months, and planning everything down to the final detail – with the help of engineers and stress analysts. Little or nothing is left to chance. But I only really calm down when I have inspected the site afterwards. The concentration and nervous tension during the countdown are part and parcel of my profession. Thirty-four years of working in the field help me make it through those final minutes.