MUMBAI: After two Covid years which recorded low noise levels due to the low-key celebrations, this year’s festivity with drums, conical loudspeakers and banjos once again brought back the deafening levels of the immersion day.The highest noise level of 120.2dB (decibels) was recorded at Opera House beyond midnight, reveals Sumaira Abdulali of Aawaz Foundation who measured noise levels at prominent areas across the city.The music stopped after a twitter complaint to @mumbaipolice at 12.13am, she said. The level is much more than the two times of the ideal 45dB allowed in a residential area during night hours.Highest decibel levels on the 10th visarjan day in 2021 were 93.1dB in 2020 was 100.7 dB and in 2019 it was 121.3 dB. Similarly, at Girgaum Chowpatty along the immersion route, she said, loudspeakers from political pandals continued beyond the period of recording, about 1.25am, despite a personal visit to the police control room at Girgaum Chowpatty and a twitter complaint to @mumbaipolice at 1.06 am.On the fifth day of the immersion recently the highest noise level was recorded to 115.6 decibels, more than twice the normal level required to be maintained in residential areas in the interest of human as well animal health.Ideally, in a residential area, 55dB from 6am to 10pm and 45dB from 10pm to 6am is the norm for noise levels.”Noise at such high levels not only adversely affects hearing but also causes high blood pressure and heart disease; mental health disorders, anxiety and rage; it can even cause cancer. Because animals hear frequencies of sound which humans cannot, the effect on them is significant too and extends to pets, wildlife and birds. Animals can become terrified, get lost. Even caterpillars have elevated heart rate when exposed to high noise levels,” she pointed out. Noise also interferes with migratory and mating patterns of animals and contributes adversely to climate change, she said.After the high court passed an order in 2016, noise levels in Mumbai had been decreasing each year until 2019.
