Power fully restored hours after blackouts in parts of Malaysia

PETALING JAYA • Power was fully restored to all regions of Malaysia after 3pm yesterday following blackouts around lunch time in several states and parts of Kuala Lumpur.

National utility company Tenaga Nasional said power was restored by 3.02pm, about three hours after reports of power outages at several places in some states. "The power supply to most areas was restored in stages 20 minutes after the disruption due to the continuous work of Tenaga's technical teams," it said in a statement.

Tenaga said the source of the disruption that began at 12.39pm was traced to a fire at Yong Peng power intake station in Johor. This had resulted in load shedding of 2.2GW, which amounted to 10 per cent of the total supply demand in Peninsular Malaysia.

Media reports said parts of Malaysia including Penang, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan states and the Klang Valley experienced power disruptions. Klang Valley encompasses the capital Kuala Lumpur and surrounding districts in Selangor state.

Malaysians took to Twitter to complain about the electricity cut, with some saying places in northern Perak states were also experiencing the same situation. Parts of Penang and Pahang that reported the power outage had supply restored less than an hour later.

#Blackout was one of the top trending topics on Twitter, with more than 4,000 tweets by users sharing their experiences.

In Kuala Lumpur, the blackout caused many traffic lights in the city to stop working.

The blackout also affected the main terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

In a post on Twitter, the airport authorities said: "We are sorry that the KLIA main terminal building is currently experiencing power supply interruption. Our engineering team is communicating closely with (Tenaga) to resolve the matter."

About an hour later, the airport tweeted that power supply had been restored.

Public transport service provider RapidKL, which operates the LRT, MRT and Monorail rail services, said its services were also affected by the power disruption.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK