The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Gusty winds bring down telecom tower in Chennai

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Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Gusty winds bring down telecom tower in Chennai

Staff Reporter

Parked car damaged, no one was injured in the incident

— PHOTO: K. PICHUMANI

ROUGH LANDING: The telecom transmission tower that fell on a car on Boat Club Road, Adyar on Sunday.

CHENNAI: A telecommunication transmission tower located atop a residential building on Boat Club Road in Adyar collapsed on Sunday damaging a car parked on the premises.

No one was injured in the incident that occurred at 3.15 p.m.

The tower, installed by Airtel seven years ago on Boat Club Villa, a 15-year-old building, collapsed following gusty winds, building supervisor S. Deenadayalan said.

The tower, installed on the terrace of the nearly 100-foot-high building, brokewhere the concrete support ended. Until 8 p.m., neither the fire service personnel nor the police could do much to remove the tower, as the support staff from the telecommunication company were waiting for instructions from their senior officials. ‘

Lucky escape

Gaurav Dugar, owner of the damaged car, said his children had a lucky escape as they had got out of the car on return from an outing minutes before the tower collapsed.

The telecom company had built a room on the terrace of the four-storeyed building, and the tower was being maintained by the company’s support staff. “We were monitoring the staff’s work regularly but we had no way of knowing that the metal had rusted,” Mr. Deenadayalan said.

The company pays Rs.15,500 as maintenance rent every month to the building’s owners.

An Airtel representative said the rectification would take some time.

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