A power outage occurred in large parts of Sarawak, East Malaysia a couple of hours ago, leaving the affected areas in near darkness for about 2 hours.
Kuching and Sibu, as well as rural areas like Lundu, Bau, and Sarikei all reported blackouts. However, there were no reports of power disruptions in Miri. Twitterjaya was in a frenzy for a couple of hours with users taking to the social media platform to confirm the outage, with some saying that even their mobile coverage was affected:
Blackout and no coverage for one hour. What happen to Kuching?
— Bad (@Su_B_Adron) January 23, 2016
Whole kuching blackout ?
— JULY (@nicholixioushea) January 23, 2016
Kuching blackout ? pic.twitter.com/L2LfdX2For
— 2(1+1)=? (@missnunamu) January 23, 2016
I guess Kuching is not welcoming me here. Blackout and no coverage for celcom until just now. @… https://t.co/2TBYEQBqBu
— nomnom (@koalanii) January 23, 2016
Kuching xplu join earth hour sbb mala jak blackout
— 0hehehe (@0hehehe) January 23, 2016
Kenapa satu kuching Sarawak blackout??
— KIR❤ (@AzreenFrankie) January 23, 2016
Blackouts hit Kuching, Sibu and other parts of Sarawak https://t.co/NS31dSYacp pic.twitter.com/SgABHFNcw4
— MiriCommunity.net (@miricom) January 23, 2016
About an hour ago, RTM Sarawak posted up an official statement from Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) with regards to the incident.
SEB explained that power supply to parts of Sibu was restored within half an hour, Kuching within an hour, and the majority of the remaining affected areas within 2 hours. They added that the incident was caused by a double circuit trip and that their technical team is currently focusing all its efforts on addressing the issue.
“To improve overall system reliability, Sarawak Energy is constructing the 500kV Transmission Backbone from Bintulu to Kuching which is expected to be completed by mid-2016,” they added.
According to The Star Online, the last time a Kuching to Sibu blackout occurred was last November. That incident occurred around noon lasting until late afternoon.
Sources: The Star Online (1), RTM Sarawak’s Facebook page, The Star Online (2).
