DINING IN THE DARK: Employees of a private company dining at a restaurant in the dark during the blackout throughout Sarawak yesterday.
CITY DIVIDED BY LIGHT: By about 8:30pm yesterday, the southern half of Kuching was still in darkness while power in the northern half where the State Legislative Assembly building is located was fully restored.
IN DARKNESS: The normally brightly lit Kuching central business district.
POWER OUTAGE: A traffic jam starting to get worst in Kuching around 6.15pm yesterday due to a major power outage statewide.
KEEPING ORDER: A police patrol car patrolling Kuching’s Main Bazaar area during the blackout. Traffic lights (as seen on left) in vicinity were not working.
BRISK BUSINESS: A popular burger stall near the Kuching waterfront enjoys brisk business as the blackout forces many locals to eat out.
BUSINESS AS USUAL: A hotel in Kuching operating in darkness.
BUSINESS AS USUAL: A vendor reads as he waits for customers opposite the Kuching Waterfront area during the blackout yesterday.
POWER DISRUPTION: The blackout caused massive traffic congestion due to the malfunction of the trafffic lights. — Bernama photo
Statewide power failure caused by overloading at sub-station snarls up rush-hour traffic
KUCHING: A statewide power failure which struck at 5.40pm yesterday when workers were rushing home caused traffic havoc in cities and towns in Sarawak as the traffic lights could not function.
One of the worst affected areas here was the Jalan Satok flyover and Jalan Tun Abang Openg junction here where motorists were caught in a two-km bumper to bumper crawl.
Most areas in the state were in darkness after sundown as the blackout resulting from tripped circuit caused by overloading at the Kemena-Bintulu sub-station continued.
Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) corporate communication manager Ahadiah Zamhari said Sarawak Energy Berhad’s (SEB) engineers and technicians were immediately deployed to restore power.
“We are doing everything
within our capacity to restore power as soon as possible and SEB deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to our customers,” she said in a statement.
She added that restoration of power would take place in stages, starting with major towns and cities.
“For now, the focus of our technicians and engineers are to ensure our supply is immediately restored,” she said.
As at press-time, power supply here was almost restored while parts of Miri and Bintulu had their supply back.
However, Sibu was still in darkness as SEB engineers had yet to fix the outage in the town.
In Sibu, ACP Shafie Ismail described traffic in the town as chaotic in the immediate period following the blackout and he had received non-stop calls with complaints on the traffic snarl.
Shafie added that he mobilised all his traffic personnel and police patrol vehicles (MPVs) at all major traffic junctions to ease traffic flow.
“We are also putting our men at strategic areas including banks, petrol stations and supermarkets to prevent bad hats from taking advantage of the blackout,” said Shafie.
The blackout also disrupted night flights to Sibu as the airport there does not have back-up generators to light up the runway’s landing lights.
A police spokesman in Miri said the traffic was slow despite traffic police personnel directing its flow.
He added that the police had deployed MPVs to monitor all banks, supermarkets, petrol stations as a precaution.
A resident in the city reported that some motorists were furious at having to weave through the traffic jam but generally road users were calm and followed the direction of traffic policemen.
Acting Kuching district police chief Supt Abang Ahmad Abang Julai when contacted said he mobilised all his men and MPVs to monitor traffic in all major junctions here.
State health director Datu Dr Zulkifli when contacted at 6.45pm said they had not received any reports of any government hospitals or clinics being adversely affected by the blackout.
This is because all hospitals are equipped with stand-by generators that kick-start within minutes after a power trip. The generators supply power to critical or special points in every ward or unit where important equipment such as patient monitors are plugged in.
He said all the critical patients and emergency services were functioning as normal and that the petrol or diesel powered generators could run for a long time.