Tower of danger will go
17/06/2008 NST By Noel Achariam

This tower in SS3, Petaling Jaya, will be dismantled in nine months.

PETALING JAYA: A telecommunication tower that has cast a huge shadow of fear over Taman Subang residents will be removed.

Taman Subang Residents Association secretary Musa Abdullah said “We are residents are pleased to know that the telecommunication company is committed to will keeping its promise.
The telecommunication company that owns it has informed residents that the tower will be removed, as it failed to meet the guidelines set by the Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

Residents are now relieved to know that in nine months' time, the tower, in Jalan SS3/49, will be dismantled.

Taman Subang Residents' Association secretary Musa Abdullah said decommissioning of the tower started two weeks ago.

"We are pleased to know that the telecommunication company is committed to keeping its promise to act on the matter. So far 10 dishes have been removed, and another 10 directed in a different direction."

"The company also told us that they will abide by the guidelines set by the MCMC, which is that the tower should be positioned 30 metres from houses," he said.

Musa said he was told by the company that the tower would be shifted to another housing area soon. However, he was skeptical about the move. "They said that they would be moving the tower, but they did not give a specific location."

Musa added that the MCMC should do more research on telecommunication towers in dense population areas.

"This is a serious issue, I hope that the commission will conduct more research on the effects of radio waves on people," he said.

UiTM Associate Professor Dr Adlina Suleiman said she was pleased with the move to relocate the tower.

"We are not against the telecommunication company. We understand that if there is no tower here, people will not get coverage from the service providers. All we want them to do is to comply with the standards set by the commission," she said.

Dr Adlina, together with 10 students from her faculty, did a survey on the effects of electromagnetic radiation from the tower on 170 residents recently.

The students concluded that residents who lived within a 40-metre radius of the tower, had the highest number of family members suffering from fatigue, loss of memory, difficulty in concentration, nausea, headache, visual problems, sleep disorders and loss of appetite.

The residents had claimed that since the tower was erected 10 years ago on a plot of land belonging to Syabas, many of them have fallen sick.