Lunchtime power outage takes Malaysia’s Klang Valley residents by surprise

KUALA LUMPUR: Residents in Malaysia’s Klang Valley were complaining of power outages in their homes and offices on Wednesday (Jul 27), as around 10 per cent of the electricity supply in the peninsula was disrupted.

Ms Amrit Kaur who lives in Rawang, Selangor told CNA said that she was watching television when the screen suddenly turned black.

She thought that something was wrong with her television but soon realised that the electricity supply has been cut off.

“It was almost two hours before the supply was restored. My neighbours also didn’t have electricity,” she said, adding that she faced problems with mobile phone coverage.    

Power supply company Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), said the power outage, which started at 12.39pm, involved 2.2GW or 10 per cent of the total supply demand in the peninsula.

The main terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) was affected. Besides the Klang Valley, other areas in Penang, Pahang and Johor were also affected. 

TNB later said that the electricity supply was fully restored by 3.02pm.

It said that supply in most of the affected areas had been restored in stages, the earliest being in 20 minutes.

TNB added that according to its investigations, the disruption was caused by an equipment fault at the main inlet of the Yong Peng North substation in Johor. 

According to Malaysia media reports, Kuala Lumpur City Hall deployed traffic wardens to control and monitor the roads as traffic lights were also affected. 

Mr Muhhamad Affendi Mahmud, 34, an IT executive, recounted that he was stuck at four different junctions as he was travelling from his office in Petaling Jaya to his home in Setia Alam. 

“Traffic was slow moving because the traffic lights were not working at all. It was traffic jam most of the way," he said.

"The good thing is the drivers were careful, everyone gave way and took turns to move. The whole journey took me around 20 minutes longer than usual.”

He added that he did not witness any accident caused by the traffic light malfunction.

Ms Faridah Nur, who works in an office building in Kuala Lumpur said that the electricity supply was cut at 12.50pm, 10 minutes before her lunchtime.

By the time she got back from lunch about one hour later, the supply had been restored. She learnt from her colleagues that the electricity supply was restored after about 30 minutes.

“I was lucky that it was lunchtime because the office would have been very hot and stuffy if there was no electricity,” she said, adding that several buildings in the vicinity of her office were also affected.  

Singaporean Tina Nair, 46, who just relocated to Kuala Lumpur five days ago said that she was about to go into the lift of her apartment block with her two daughters when there was a blackout.   

She had to wait for about 20 minutes for the lift to work before she could go up to her unit.

She however said there was a silver lining as her daughter made a friend with another girl who was similarly stranded in the lobby because of the outage.

“They just hit it off and now she is playing with one of my daughters at my home,” she said, adding that the electricity to her apartment was restored in about an hour.

Additional reporting by Amir Yusof.