Dust particles increase after new airport opens

If no measures were implemented to tackle the growing problem, the situation could worsen in 25 years, and affect the health of nearby residents, it urged.

Dr Preecha Yupapin, a lecturer from the institute's Department of Applied Physics, said the institute and US experts had recently surveyed installed dust particle inspection devices around the airport and found an increase in the amount of particles.

The dust had increased by 0.1 per cent, which was not a dangerous level, because rainfall had cleaned the dust from the air. However, if the problem remained with no solutions implemented, problems would occur in the next 25 years, he said.

Meanwhile, Bangkok's Silom, Sukhumvit and Yaowarat roads were detected with 0.6 per cent of dust particles - which does pose a danger to peoples' health, he added.

Preecha said the dust mostly resulted from vehicle exhausts, which could be solved by installing exhaustscreening devices or better engine maintenance to avoid longterm problems that would affect nearby residents' respiratory systems.

The team also joined with Advance Info Service PLC (AIS) to study the impact of dust particles on cell phone signals and found that the 0.1 per cent increase in particles did not affect the analogue signals but that 0.5 per cent and above did, according to Preecha.//dpa