Aircraft noise ear-splitting

HYDERABAD: Incidence of sensory neuraldeafness is on a rise among residents in surrounding areas of Begumpet airport,thanks to the noise pollution from the flights even during the nighttime.There has definitely been a rise in cases of sensory neuraldeafness because of the noise pollution, senior consultant, ENT surgeon, Dr VenuGopal Reddy who works at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences told The Times ofIndia.Dr Venu claims that such deafness is usually caused in the agegroup of 65 to 70 years. But among residents near the airport, it is seen amongthose between 55 to 65 years, he said.Besides, cases of patientsaffected with respiratory diseases has also been on the rise due to vehicularpollution and air pollution. People exposed to more than 90 decibels of soundfor two or three hours every day suffer damages in the hair cells in cochlea(organ for hearing). The damage of these cells is permanent and causes deafness,he said.In areas surrounding the airport about two to fivekilometres, the level of sound is about 90 decibels for about eight hours perday. Besides, most international flights operate only in the night and the soundis unbearable during landing and take off, president of Save SecunderabadEnvironment Committee, captain S Vijay Kumar said. The permissible standards are55 db for normal working place and 90 db for eight hours in factories, headded.With the proposed expansion of runway by 460 metres forallowing 747 Boeing, the future is scary for the residents. The Boeing has fourengines pumping out nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon non oxide and otherpoisonous gases. The sound it causes is also about 30 db more than normalaircrafts, retired general manager of Nuclear Fuel Complex, Dr H S Ahluwaliasaid.Airport noise causes sleep disturbances, shortened REM (rapideye movement) and premature arousal from sleep, which leads to decreasedefficiency. Also, noise interfered with speech and learning when it exceeded 60db. Studies conducted at a school near LA airport reported that MAT scores hadfallen, students were inattentive, and they did worse on standard mathematictesting. There are about 100 schools, 15 lakh population, 20 hospitals in thesurrounding areas of Begumpet airport, which will definitely be affected oncethe proposed expansion (which has already started) hits the runway,environmentalist, Puroshottam Reddy said.The Environment PublicHearing will be conducted on January 9, 2004,but the venue is Hyderabadcollectorate. The Save Secunderabad Environment Committee on Saturday demandedthat the venue be shifted to a convenient place in Secunderabad where residents(about 4000) could participate.