NEWS & UPDATES

Sibu, April 19, 2013:  Sarawak Energy deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to their valuable customers in Sibu due to the power outage occurred at 9.20am today.  A power outage occurred when the contractor for the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) inadvertently caused damage to 2 sets of power cables at Jalan Lanang.  The incident occurred when a cable was damaged by DID contractors for the second time while our restoration team was working on a cable which was damaged by the same contractor the day before.  It was fortunate that we were able to restore power from the first set of damage within 1 1/2 hours by routing to another power cable.  Unfortunately the second healthy cable was damaged by the same contractor early Friday morning and caused the power outage. 

Immediate action was carried out by Sarawak Energy's restoration team under the personal supervision of Mr Choo Min Chong, Sarawak Energy's Regional Manager for Central Region, who has taken the task as top priority.

'While we regret that the power outage occurred, we would like to clarify that the power outage was caused by external 3rd party contractors who inadvertently damaged our power cables.  As constant and reliable electricity supply is our top priority, we immediately despatched our restoration team to rectify the situation and fortunately we were able to restore electricity by 3.53pm after cable jointing work was completed at 3.10 pm.  We will also be notifying contractors to practise caution to prevent similar incidents from happening again.  We thank our customers for their patience and understanding.' said Mr Choo during an interview. 

15 substations were affected by the damage along Jalan Lanang in Sibu.  The faulty cables were quickly recovered by Sarawak Energy's restoration team and immediate jointing was carried out by 2 teams to speed up the restoration process.