Ward Brunet Demolition Collaboration

On the 17th of December 2024, a 7.3 earthquake struck Vanuatu’s capitol Port Vila, killing 14 people and displacing 1473 from their homes. The extensive damage shut down the city.

Ward Brunet Ltd, is a collaboration between New Zealand’s Ward Demolition and Vanuatu’s Pierre Brunet Enterprises, born out of necessity to resurrect earthquake damaged Vanuatu.

Ward Demolition have the high level of expertise with unstable multistory demolition, gained from the 2011 Christchurch earthquake aftermath and 38 years of demolition experience. Pierre Brunet Enterprise is a Vanuatuan company with over 30 years’ experience in construction and civil works. Their local knowledge, connections and workforce was crucial to the collaboration. Together, Ward Brunet has safely executed the Demolition of 15 out of the 20 earthquake damaged structures so far. Dalton Ward, projects manager and lead operator said: “as a company these projects have been some of the most rapid demolitions we have seen in our careers.”

Casa Andrea - Embassy Building

We kicked off our collaboration January 22nd, 2025, with the Demolition of Casa Andrea, the French, USA and New Zealand Embassy building. The bottom floor of the left wing had completely collapsed leaving the 4-story structure teetering on the brink of total collapse, that could occur during the ongoing aftershocks at any point. It was in a very dangerous state and although miraculously no lives were lost in the initial partial collapse, there was a high risk of death if the building was not dealt to timely and correctly.

This first project gave us a taste of why the Ward Brunet collaboration was so crucial as challenges arrived. With cell service dropping out for hours at a time atop of language barriers, the involvement of locals was invaluable. With the high-risk nature of the structures, demolition experts were essential for ensuring no further lives were lost. Pierre’s local status meant he had experience juggling the complex political landscape on the Island. At one stage an outfit came to shut off our water supply used for dust mitigation during this emergency works. Pierre not only had the local knowledge of who to talk to, to enable us to continue but also the local dialect of French/ Bislama needed to communicate with them and resolve the issue. Pierre’s input was vital juggling the client group comprised of representatives from each embassy and the building’s owner.

Being one of the earlier projects we had not yet barged Ward Demolitions specialized demolition equipment over from New Zealand. We were forced to be resourceful and adapt to what was readily available. Utilizing a 50 tonne with general purpose bucket we trucked in material to build a pad giving the machine more height to initiated the demolition. This was accompanied by a 20 tonne excavator with breaker, rock and weed bucket and a grapple that we miraculously found in the jungle on a drive around the island. Locals didn’t understand why our team were so excited about the discovery of this attachment and why it was so monumental to our project, as they had no clue what it even was. Highlighting why the involvement of Ward Demolition in the collaboration was vital. To adapt to the lack of high reach Ward worked with Pierre’s local engineers to weld an ibeam to the 50 tonnes weed bucket giving us 4 metres extra reach. As well as, hollowing out an old breaker and attaching an ibeam to the 20 tonne, giving it an extra 6 metres of reach.

Shipping Specialised Demolition Equipment

Pierre’s involvement in the shipping industry was crucial in obtaining a maritime shipping exemption and barging roughly 350 tonnes of Ward Demolitions specialized demolition and recycling equipment from the ports of Auckland to Vanuatu. As a team we investigated the islands local landfill and deemed it to be insufficient. The roads were too soft and unstable; the site was small and overcrowded. We consented our own landfill and recognized early on we would need to divert as much waste as we could from it as possible on an island with limited resources. Which leads us to recycling.

Introducing Recycling Processes

Ward Demolition is one of the largest demolition waste recyclers in NZ and were determined to bring this practice into the collaboration by sharing their knowledge and equipment with Pierre. Together we established a concrete recycling facility on the island and a salvage yard for the used building materials and furniture coming out of each structure. Pierre was completely on board with this from the start and worked tirelessly with the team to make it a reality. On the first demolition, the embassy building, we tried giving away furniture to locals but quickly learned it caused too many fights, so we ended up selling the items at extremely reduced rates to avoid conflicts. Together we have recycled 1,134 tonnes of steel, 14,643 tonnes of concrete, 12,010 tonnes was delivered to our waste yard where 80% was then separated out for backfilling. As well as an unquantifiable amount of furniture/ appliance/ building materials. As a team, Ward Brunet Ltd are committed to bettering the community where we can. Ward Brunet worked for 3 weeks, cost only with 3 men and a 20 tonne digger, removing 300 tonne of debris and rubbish from the local markets to facilitate it’s re-opening a vital component in the community’s local economy.

Ward Demolition is working towards donating recycled materials shipped from our New Zealand yard to facilitate the rebuild once the demolition is complete. Giving back is important to us.

Health and Safety

Safety was also a big concern for the Ward Brunet collaboration. The New Zealand team is used to adhering to strict health and safety laws governed by WorkSafe, Vanuatu has no such laws. The lack of basic PPE and paperwork was a culture shock to the Ward team. Alongside the 35-degree Celsius heat and at times 100% humidity. We agreed as a collaboration, that due to the high risks involved with Demolition we would adopt the New Zealand safety procedures regardless of the relaxed laws, because the health and safety of our team always comes first. One of the key challenges was the lack of asbestos testing and regulations on the island, despite the presence being obvious to Ward’s demolition experts. Using Pierre’s local connections, Ward Brunet conducted their own asbestos surveys prior to works, utilizing a local expat scientist who had a private laboratory that was able to identify asbestos. Pierre is known for following New Zealand’s building code with his construction projects, which was evident when all the structures his team had built were left standing after the 7.3 earthquake. It was ideal that both sides of the collaboration were invested in doing things the right way regardless of the relaxed regulations.

The island had no temporary fencing available to protect the public by creating exclusion zones. Ward Brunet adapted by using waratahs and plastic orange mesh to erect a physical barrier at least one step above danger tape. Some other safety protocols we introduced were SSSP’s, JSA’s, toolbox’s and prestart. It was important to Ward to share their knowledge with the locals, so at the conclusion of this collaboration, we leave the community in a better state than we found it. Potentially preventing future injury or even death.

Speed and Precision

There were some highlights among the 15 out of 20 structures already completed. Olympic, was an entire city block comprising of 6 buildings, highest being 3 stories, completely cleared by Ward Brunet in under 3 weeks. The longest project being VMPF, which took 9 weeks. It was a 4-story strip out with complete removal of the catastrophically damaged top floor using 1.5 tonne digger and crane. As mentioned, a lot of these projects were completed in record time. A big contributor to this was Pierre’s incredible Ginaf trucks. These 8-wheel drive monsters have a 60 tonne payload, almost 6 times the amount of the NZ equivalent in one trip. They were ex prototype mining trucks out of china, unable to be utilized in most countries due to weight restrictions that don’t exist on the island. Speed was of great importance across many of these projects as the unstable structures were the cause of many main road closures and business shutdowns, stunting the rebuilding of the local economy.

The re-opening of Vanuatu’s port Villa would not have been accomplished this fast or at all, if it wasn’t for one of the greatest Collaborations we have ever been a part of. Not only between New Zealand’s Ward Demolition and Vanuatu locals, Pierre Brunet Enterprise, but with every client and their stake holders involved.