Seattle's Kingdome stadium put on perhaps its greatest public show when it was destroyed in a spectacular controlled explosion.

The 24-year old indoor sports centre was reduced to dust on Sunday to make way for a more profitable outdoor football field.

In only 16 seconds, 50,000 tons of concrete was reduced to rubble, sending spectators in central Seattle hurrying for cover.

After explosions were set off in a carefully orchestrated sequence, rippling along the ribs of the structure's roof, the dome was reduced to piles of rubble 8m (25 feet) high.

Windows in some nearby buildings were shattered.

Until last year the Kingdome was home to the Seattle Mariners baseball team and the Seattle Seahawks football team.

The Mariners have moved next door into a new stadium, Safeco Field, and the Seahawks new $430m stadium will now be constructed on the Kingdome site.

Controlled Demolition, the Maryland-based company that took the Seattle landmark down, is headed by company president Mark Loizeaux, who says he has been blowing things up since he was eight years old.

Controlled Demolition has taken down 7,000 structures, from missile sites in the former Soviet Union to earthquake-damaged buildings in Mexico and the remains of the bombed US federal building in Oklahoma City.