by Nem Davies
Tuesday, 12 May 2009 15:31
New Delhi (Mizzima) – A strong dust storm, laced with gusty winds struck Mandalay, damaging a number of billboards.
The 30-minute duration strong dust storm struck Mandalay on May 6 and damaged a lot of billboards, according to the Mandalay based advertisement industry.
"Over 10 billboards erected by us on 35th Street flyover were damaged by the dust storm. All the billboards were either uprooted or broken," Win Bo, an official of MAG Advertising Company told Mizzima.
"Some need to be reconstructed totally and some are repairable. But we have not yet finished repairing all of them," he said.
"As soon as the storm struck, I visited and checked all our billboards erected on 35th Street between 78th and 80th Streets. Over 20 of them were destroyed," Ko Than Htike, in-charge of Goal Ad Company said.
Mandalay City Development Committee (municipal committee) told the advertising firms to repair all the damaged billboards situated on busy streets and markets, overnight.
But the city municipal committee did not allow re-erecting the 50'x50' billboard on 35th Street which fell on nearby power transmission cables, telephone lines and lampposts. The extent of damage is severe.
"We bought the billboard erection rights on these locations from the municipal committee after submitting applications. Our ad companies suffer whenever something like this happens. We have to bear all the expenses but our client companies spend nothing," Ko Than Htike said.
The storm blew off roofs of buildings in the downtown area, uprooted trees which fell on the lampposts leading to power failure.
The banyan tree in the north of Mya Taung monastery was also uprooted, so fierce was the storm.
Electricity was restored only in the afternoon the next day, Nyi Pu Lay, a local resident of Mandalay said.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
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