Noida: Sunlight & a view, but families now shutting doors, windows

NOIDA: Residents of ATS Greens Village are relieved that the next-door twin towers have been demolished, bringing back sunlight into their flats and giving them a clear view of the expressway, but they now have to lock themselves inside to block out the dust - at least for the next few months.
The residents are demanding that the authorities put up tall barricades at the spot where the boundary wall of ATS Greens Village fell. This, they said, will act as a barrier for the dust and the debris from blowing into their houses in Sector 93A.
The 30-storey-high Supertech twin towers, located in the Emerald Court complex and adjacent to ATS Greens Village, were demolished last Sunday - in a spectacle that involved detonating 3,700kg of explosives.
Reduced to rubble, the twin towers are lying in a massive mound of debris, up to 80,000 tonnes of it, which is expected to take at least three months to remove. The boundary wall of ATS Greens Village had been damaged in the demolition.
"The twin towers were barely 50 metres from our building. We had to stop using our balcony after they were constructed. We thought we could start stepping out again, since we have the view back, but now there's dust. We keep windows and doors closed at all times," said Veenu Mathur (69), who lives in tower 7 of ATS Greens.
Mathur said his family will continue to take precautions as his wife Shobha (67) has chronic kidney disease.
Poonam Mutreja, a resident of tower 6A, said the area where the boundary wall fell had not been barricaded till now. Her family, too, is taking precautions such as wearing masks, and keeping the doors windows shut at all times, she added.
The domestic helpers who work in the societies told TOI that dust in the air had triggered bouts of coughing and a cold for some."My eyes also itch," a domestic help, who did not wish to be identified, said on Thursday.