POWER cables suspected of causing leukaemia to residents of a Limassol area will be relocated in six months, the Electricity Authority (EAC) said yesterday.
Speaking to a Limassol radio station, EAC Chairman George Georgiades said they had secured the necessary town planning permits to remove the overhead cables from a residential area and relocate them to a farming area.
Georgiades said this was an important project for the EAC, since it would solve the problem of overhead power cables passing through residential areas.
The issue emerged over a year ago after residents of the area claimed the electromagnetic fields emitted from the cables caused leukaemia and demanded their removal.
The residents said 13 people, including several children, had died from the disease, and threatened to bulldoze the pylons if the authority refused to remove its cables.
Back then, the EAC claimed it was conforming to all regulations and international standards, arguing that its electric power installations emitted just one tenth of the maximum allowed standard.
The authority presented a study carried out in the UK and published in The Lancet
medical journal: “This study provides no evidence that exposure to magnetic fields associated with the electricity supply in the UK increases risks for childhood leukaemia, cancers of the central nervous system, or any other childhood cancer.”
But the residents refuted thism arguing the study was carried out on the basis of an average 0.2 micro Tesla exposure.
EAC fields emit an average of seven micro Tesla, the residents said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
