Firefighters work together to extricate the object from the hole in the ground.
MIRI (Aug 3): An unidentified object has been removed from a site at Sepupok in Niah.
The large piece, weighing 27kg, was discovered last Sunday lodged inside a two-foot deep hole in the ground.
Acting Fire and Rescue (Bomba) Miri chief Ahmad Nizam Sapaiee said they received a call from the police at 1.53pm yesterday, informing them about the situation.
Following that call, a team of eight firefighters from Batu Niah station, led by its chief Rary Binjie, rushed to the scene located 11km from the station.
“It took the firefighters 24 minutes to extricate the object from the hole.
The unidentified object weighs 27kg.
“The length of the object is one foot and four inches, its weight is 27kg, and it has flat circular ends – one measuring 120cm in circumference, and the other, 80cm in circumference,” he said, adding that the object was later handed over to the police.
Also present at the site to witness the operation were Miri police chief ACP Alexson Naga Chabu, and three officers from the Malaysian Space Agency (MYSA) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti).
It could not be ascertained if the object had derived from the debris of China’s Long March 5B rocket, which was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft site in China on July 24.
In a recent statement, MYSA had said that re-entry of the rocket remnants was expected between July 30 and Aug 1.