BAU – Two districts on the southern end of Sarawak close to the Malaysia-Indonesia border have been left in the dark after two landslides cut off electricity supply in the area
Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB), the state-owned power company, in a statement tonight said that its technical team had been deployed on site to carry out repair and restoration works on the two electricity supply lines running between the districts of Bau and Lundu, which had been damaged by the landslides.
“Two 33 kV overhead lines tripped after the landslide incidents damaged an electrical pole and caused underground cable fault from soil erosion,” SEB said.
The first line was reported to trip at about 11.30pm on Wednesday, January 13 and SEB immediately deployed its operation team to assess the impact of the landslide on the fallen pole.
“However, repair efforts were hampered by unsafe site conditions due to landslide and area inaccessibility due to flood waters,” it said.
According to the statement, the second line to the two districts tripped at about 10.45am today after another landslide incident damaged the underground cable.
“Restoration efforts will only proceed after the site has been cleared and (declared) safe for repair works,” the company said.
The statement quoted SEB’s regional manager for western region, Choo Min Chong, as saying that the restoration team had been working to repair the broken pole at the first line, which is expected to be completed by 10.00pm tonight.
“Earth movement and poor weather conditions continue to hamper the team’s progress in safe and quick restoration works. We are updating our affected customers on the situation and truly appreciate their kind understanding on this. We assure them that we are doing our best to restore power supply safely as soon as we can,” he added. – Bernama, January 15, 2021
