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On a stormy afternoon in Fullerton Cove, Debbie Brooks was hunkered down at home when she heard an almighty bang outside, and felt her house shake.
She assumed the cause was an exercise at the nearby RAAF base at Williamtown. But she was wrong. As the storm raged that April day, with winds gusting up to 57km/h, a 40-metre mobile phone tower in her back paddock had toppled from its base and crashed to the ground.
Workers clean up the damage after a vandalised mobile phone tower fell at Fullerton Cove.Credit: Debbie Brooks
“Somebody had taken all the nuts off the bottom base,” said Brooks, who runs a supported living home for people with disabilities from her property north of Newcastle. “There’s a possibility it could have killed someone.
“It left a dent in the ground that’s waist deep. And it took out my back fence.”
The vandalism was one of at least 11 similar attacks in NSW this year. Vandals remove nuts from the bolts that secure the towers to the ground, causing them to eventually topple.
A tower used by Telstra also fell in April at Candelo, near Bega, and a month later, the same thing happened to a tower used by Optus at Mullumbimby. Police are investigating.
Similar attacks in the past have been linked to 5G conspiracy theories.
The damaged tower at Candelo.Credit: Telstra
Industry spokespeople say the attacks are “incredibly dangerous” because they put lives at risk, not only when the tower tumbles but also by knocking out communications.