Major blackout in Malaysia

On Thu 13 Jan 2005, a major blackout hit several states of Malaysia, including the capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

The Straits Times (Singapore) reported that :

Confusion reigned after a power blackout hit Kuala Lumpur and several Malaysian states yesterday, forcing shopping malls to close and leaving thousands of commuters stranded.

The blackout hit the capital and parts of Selangor, as well as major towns in the southern states of Malacca, Johor and Negeri Sembilan. It started at about 12.20pm and lasted nearly three hours.

The power failure shut down production lines, trapped office workers in lifts and forced retailers to shut their shops. Coming as it did during the lunch-time rush hour, thousands here were stranded when the subway trains stopped. But emergency power supplies kept the airport, hospitals and the stock market running.

The national power company, Tenaga Nasional, said about a million workers had been affected but denied rumours that the power loss was the result of sabotage by staff unhappy with a poor bonus payout last year. It said the power failure had been due to faulty switch gear at a power plant.

The Star (Malaysia) reported that :

The failure of a switchgear in the Kapar power station brought four states and Putrajaya and parts of Kuala Lumpur to a standstill in a five-hour power blackout in the southern region of the peninsula.

Tens of thousands of motorists were caught in a snarl and millions of people had to have their lunch either in candlelight or out in the open when power failed at 12.16pm. A massive traffic jam which occurred in Jalan Cheras as a result of traffic lights being down during the power failure on Thursday. This is the fourth major power failure to hit the country since 1985.

- Just one small thing I noticed - by hook or by crook, the cash registers were still ringing in the shopping malls. I was at the Tesco mall in Malacca on the 13th when the electricity went out. At least it was in broad daylight - when Biow Ee and I stepped out of the mall, we were greeted by the typical hot, scorching tropical daytime common here. All this free incoming solar energy, gone to waste, that's my lament. The traffic lights were out and there were massive jams at the major junctions. After some rather unorthodox driving I managed to clear the junction and arrive later at the next mall - power was still out. There were some lights on, but flickering, must be due to the poorer quality power from the backup diesel generators. Yup, the cash registers were still working. No Visa or other credit cards though - gotta make sure you have some cash handy, because the ATM's are likely to be down as well. Power was restored at about 3.30 pm there - a cheer went up and life went back to normal.

How much society is affected is all a matter of how long the blackout lasts. A few minutes, not much of a problem except for certain industrial operations. An hour or so, it starts to get a little inconvenient (subways stop, traffic chaos, people stuck in lifts or find it difficult to reach high residential or office floors). After a few hours, frozen food will start getting spoilt. It gets worse after that, when backup generators run out, cars and trucks start to run out of fuel because the pumps at petrol stations stop working, and so on. Fortunately, over here we haven't seen such a long one (yet!)

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