The Beast claws its way into our Top 10 annual round-up.
Based upon viewing figures for this past year, we should probably move out of Demolition News Towers and set up shop just outside the Kocurek factory in Ipswich, such is the demolition industry’s endless fascination with big iron and big diggers.
It will come as no great surprise to anyone that the Hitachi machine repurposed by Kocurek for Heavy Decom International (HDI) – and which was to win an innovation trophy at the recent Demolition Awards – would be in our Top 10. Indeed, there were times when the machine seemed to be the most talked about matter in the entire global demolition industry. Once again, DemolitionNews was the first media outlet to catch a glimpse of the machine in all its 200 tonne glory and, while we’re not usually given to boasting, we’re pretty sure that we gave the machine the name by which it now universally known: The Beast.
After a few initial outings here in the UK, the machine headed for sunnier climes and current resides in Egypt where it is eating a shipwreck (no, seriously). The decision to invest somewhere in the region of £2 million on an unproven machine at the height of a global recession was bold in the extreme. But it is starting to look as though HDI were blessed with considerable foresight.
We certainly look forward to seeing this monster machine in action again sometime soon.
