Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Second blackout hits Penang

A second blackout within 16 hours has left thousands of residents and business operators from several areas near Komtar fuming mad.

About 8,000 domestic and commercial users in Komtar, Prangin Mall, Macalister Road, Cecil Street and Macallum Street had to endure a 12-hour blackout from 8am yesterday.


Tenaga Nasional Bhd said the blackout was due to faulty underground cables which connected the main intake stations of Bandar Baru Air Itam and Prangin Mall.

On Monday, some 10,000 dom­estic and commercial pre­mises were without power supply for four hours after Ten­aga’s main intake station in Sungai Pinang caught fire at 4.50pm.

The affected areas were Mac­alister Road, Datuk Keramat Road, Penang Road, Perak Road, Jelutong Expressway, Sungai Pi­­nang and Burmah Road.

Tenaga’s Penang general manager Abdul Aziz Jaafar apologised for the inconvenience caused, adding that both incidents were not related.


Abdul Aziz said Tenaga’s control centre in Seberang Prai spotted the flaws in the underground cables.

He said the faulty underground cables spanning five kilometres subsequently affected 88 other sub-stations.

“A special team was immediately deployed to carry out repair works. They had to rely on a special set to trace the source of the problem,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

Abdul Aziz said 11 generator sets were used to restore power supply in stages, adding that they received back-up support from their counterparts in Perak, Kedah, Perlis and Kuala Lumpur.

“Supply was fully restored at 8pm,” he said, adding that the fault was certainly not due to human er­­ror.

My own opinion, to be a leading city and developed nation, such thing should not be happening too often or so big scale, let alone twice in 2 days...
The Star

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