Power restored at Johor land checkpoint after hours-long outage disrupts Malaysia-Singapore travel
A photo of commuters queuing up near the Johor Bahru Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex, after a blackout, taken at 5am on Dec 6, 2023. (Photo: Facebook/Muruga Vell)
This audio is generated by an AI tool.
SINGAPORE: An hours-long power outage at the Johor Bahru land checkpoint disrupted travel between Malaysia and Singapore on Wednesday (Dec 6), with long queues at the immigration facility and heavy traffic on the Causeway.
Power has since been restored.
Singapore's Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said in an update at 4pm that the tailback of departure traffic from Malaysia at Woodlands Checkpoint has subsided.
The power outage began at midnight on Tuesday, according to Singapore Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao.
Pictures and videos on social media showed long queues at the departure hall of the Malaysia checkpoint building, known as the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex (BSI CIQ).
Many travellers were waiting in the dark. According to travellers on social media, the power outage also caused electronic gate (e-gate) facilities to go down.
Other videos showed motorcyclists stuck in a jam at about 8.30am.
The situation affected traffic at Singapore's Woodlands checkpoint, with ICA warning travellers of heavy departure traffic "due to tailback from Malaysia".
"Delays are expected and travellers are advised to check traffic conditions before embarking on their journey," ICA said at 11am.
Johor Chief Minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the incident was extremely distressing to users and an embarrassment to the state.
In his post, he attached a photo of a letter from energy company Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Dated Nov 27, the letter stated that the supply of electricity would be stopped or affected temporarily in several areas, including the CIQ complex and JB Sentral, from 8pm on Tuesday to 4am on Wednesday.
It is unclear why the outage continued after 4am.
According to the Star, citing Johor Immigration Department director Baharuddin Tahir, all agencies in the building were inspecting their systems to ensure there were no issues following the disruption.
He added that during the blackout, officers at immigration counters had to carry out clearances manually.
CNA has asked Malaysia's immigration department for comment.
Related:
When contacted by CNA, Johor works, transportation, and infrastructure executive committee chairman Mohamad Fazli Mohamad Salleh said that the power disruption had been due to the maintenance work conducted by TNB and a power trip experienced by the power-supply generator.
“We just finished meeting to discuss proposed improvements, still discussing. Can only confirm that e-gates have resumed operations fully,” said Mr Fazli.
Separately, state assemblyman for the Stulang constituency – an area adjacent to the CIQ complex – Andrew Chen said that while maintenance work conducted by TNB is “unavoidable”, he implored that such works be conducted during the off-peak period so as to avoid inconveniencing the public.
“For me in (the) future, if let’s say there's any maintenance needed, time (allocated) should be 12am to 4am, not from 8pm to 4am. (It) should be (during the) off-peak (period) so that we do not disrupt traffic flow, especially for Malaysians going to work,” said Mr Chen.
Further, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) politician said that back-up generators must be on standby mode when maintenance work is carried out “in case the power supply is lost”.
“When the maintenance work is done, power supply must be resumed so nothing is interrupted. We cannot let these maintenance work disrupt the process of immigration and customs,” said Mr Chen, who led a state task force between 2018-2020 to ease congestion at the Causeway.
He added: “All of us, me, the chief minister and government officials have worked hard to ensure that the congestion issues have been minimised recently, and we hope that incidents like this do not reoccur as it impacts livelihoods.”
Mr Onn Hafiz, the chief minister, has made the efficiency of the Johor checkpoints a key priority of his state administration. Since he came to power, he has made numerous visits to the Johor checkpoints, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning.
In an interview with CNA earlier this year, the Machap state assemblyman stressed that the efficiency level of immigration facilities on the Malaysian side of the Causeway must be raised to 100 per cent in order to alleviate congestion at the land border.
PAST INSTANCES OF OUTAGE
In 2018, a power disruption caused by a faulty city main entrance substation in Johor Bahru led to an outage in the city centre and its surrounding areas on Sep 6 for close to seven hours.
Back then, the outage affected several places including the Sultan Iskandar Building that houses the CIQ complex, the Komtar building as well as JB Sentral.
However, media reports back then stated that the CIQ complex and most commercial buildings experienced only a temporary disruption before continuing to operate on backup generators.
Separately, a four-hour power outage at Woodlands Checkpoint in Singapore in October last year led to some drivers to be redirected to the Second Link.
The power outage, according to Singapore’s ICA, was the result of a failed backup power generator while scheduled maintenance of the power source at Woodlands Checkpoint was taking place.
Additional reporting by Amir Yusof.
