KUCHING: Construction works at a major development project nearby Bormill Estate along Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce here damaged Sarawak Energy underground cables, cutting supply to around 5,000 customers in some parts of the city yesterday.
Sarawak Enery Berhad (SEB) in a statement yesterday said the power interruption which began around 8.07am affected parts of Ong Tiang Swee, Batu Kawa, Third Mile, Pisang Road and Poh Kwong Park as well as the Sarawak General Hospital and a private medical centre in the area.
“Upon notification of the outage the technical team of Sesco, Sarawak Energy’s operations and retail arm, was immediately deployed to site. During the investigation, the team discovered the damaged underground cable and quickly isolated the faulty cable before working to restore supply progressively. They managed to restore 90 per cent of supply by 8.55am and full restoration was achieved at 10.55am,” it said.
Last week, a similar incident took place which saw the interruption of supply to around 5,000 customers at Matang Jaya due to damaged underground cables caused by road construction works.
Sarawak Energy reminded contractors to take precautionary measures before proceeding with excavation works at areas with underground power cables running through.
The State power utility has been conducting proactive direct engagements, and distributed advisory pamphlets to contractors as well as put up advertisements to create awareness on the seriousness of the matter.
Sesco Chief Executive Officer, Lau Kim Swee said, “We urge contractors to contact us before proceeding with any excavation works at construction sites. Despite our efforts to educate on the importance of keeping safe and taking the necessary precautions, some contractors continue to ignore this.
They fail to realise they are jeopardising their workers’ safety as well as risk causing power outages to customers and inconveniencing them. For such cases, we will bill the contractor responsible for the damage and issue a warning to them.
“Sesco will continue to build awareness and we will deploy our safety officers to conduct safety briefings and show them (contractors) our cable routes so they can take note and be more careful where they dig. We will also deploy more cable surveillance teams to patrol and monitor closely construction sites and provide assistance to identify cable route on site.”
In the event of damage to cables, contractors should contact SEB’s Customer Care Centre at 1-300-88-3111 so that its technical team can work to isolate the damaged portion and restore supply to minimise supply interruption time.
