Swordie Bloggie

When I arrived home from work around 6pm yesterday, my mum said there is no power coz around 5.30pm, the Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd. transformer nearby the house exploded. Thinking other have called the SESB hotline, I did not do anything. But I get impatient when SESB people are nowhere to be seen at 6.30pm… so I called their hotline at 15454.

At 7pm, still no SESB people… so I called again… I asked why still no action… the hotline operator said there are numbers of report and all their maintenance team are out troubleshooting at other places which are very urgent… I almost want to scold her by saying ‘my place not important lah?’… but I hold back and just roar like lion king… and she apologize for the delay… 😛

About 15 minutes later, I saw some activities around the transformer… then truck pull in and at around 7.30pm, I can hear loud sound like generator sound… a few minutes later, electricity restored… I was wondering if they are using genset to power us… so I went to check… and sure enough, they are using mobile generator… I ask few questions to the operator and found out that the explosion quite serious and they might not able to fix it so soon… so they bring in the mobile genset… a 300KW genset…

Well, it is more than 12 hours already, and the genset is still running… hope it won’t run out of fuel soon… I don’t really need electricity at daytime… it’s Saturday so there is not much activities… unless I want to do some welding works using welder like millermatic at Bakers Gas… but no, I’m going gym instead… and furthermore it’s quite cloudy today so the weather is not that hot at the moment.

But I hope the SESB plan to do power shutdown on several places today will not affect CitiMall where the gym I’m going… as for the house, if they shut down the power grid, I think we can continue enjoying the mobile genset they have provided since last night… 😀

Early this morning, around 3.33am, there was a major blackout… spanning almost the whole Sabah and Labuan. I did not know about it… it was reported in the electronic news which I read in the office. I woke up as usual and there was no blackout.

According to the report, the blackout affected some 500,000 consumers and caused traffic jams at certain location in the city… I did not encounter any traffic jam this morning and the one traffic light I have cross to office was functioning as usual.

The report said, the blackout was caused by an explosion at the main power distribution station at Jalan Bundusan, about 3 km from my house… Immediately Sabah Electricity SDN BHD (SESB) scrambled to repair the fault and gradually restored the power to most major town from 7am.

I guess SESB service has improved since I did not feel the blackout… even at the office. If their service in restoring the power was slow, I guess a lot of people will be unable to make it to the office on time this morning… and a lot will complain with the heat. Actually my office was a bit warm but it was not that so bad… and the water supply is normal… meaning the air-conds and water pumps are still working… probably not at 100% but OK for it to make the people inside the office building comfortable.

Photo copied from Facebook shows the parts exploded at the Jalan Bundusan SESB Distribution Station.

Supposed to do gym tonight… but unfortunately it was blackout at City Mall. I arrived there around 7.10pm… only certain parts of the mall are lit up. I ask one of the shop keepers how long the blackout has been… he said quite sometime… 😛

The gym is totally out… there is no single light I can see inside the gym… on the 1st and 2nd floor of the mall. So, I called Disney… who is also coming to the gym… he was still on his way. I told him about the blackout… then we decide to abandon the gym… and decided to go for night photography instead…

Since I did not bring my camera, I have to go back home… same with him. Going back is another hard part… there was a massive traffic jam at the main road outside the mall… and I was stuck there about half hour before manage to make a U-turn.

For the photography, we went to Kota Kinabalu’s Central Market… around it, there are many stalls selling foods… its quite lively… so we spend quite a long time there… and I was sweating and damm tired walking around… but well, since we did not go for gym, this is good way to do quick weight loss… 😀

After that, we proceeded to KDCA to take photos of the dragon lanterns… and it was so tiring… worse than doing exercise at the gym… I have to use every part of my muscle to stretch out to have a good view of the dragons… 😛

The government said, they have spent RM1 billion… or USD$300 million… to improve the electricity supply in the state… but yet the blackout is getting worse day by day.

Then, they blame the generators… old generator sets which are inefficient and costly to maintain… 😛 who purchase the generators in the first place?

Now they are proposing to use gas or coal power generation plants… the coal power plant proposal was heavily objected by many parties… even me don’t agree with it… coz we have so much oil and gas dug in the state… we are one of the biggest oil producer in the country!!!… we don’t have coal mine here!!!

Solutions using gas for the power plants are more feasible coz we have the gas supply on hand… and soon an oil and gas processing plant at Kimanis… or was it just an oil and gas terminal???… damm… are we being short-hand again?… is being build and will be completed soon…

If oil and gas processing plant is build instead of just oil and gas terminal, thousands of our people in the state will get employment… when more people employed, there will be less jobless people in the state… then the economic will improve… and with the power plant… stable power supply… more investor will come here to build their factory etc… etc… etc… 😛

Went for tea at Tanjung Aru yesterday evening but suddenly there was a ‘flash’ heavy rain… and the rest of other places too like Penampang I guess. I went out from the car first and the other two colleagues wanted to use umbrella… so this is the result of it… I told you all I’m going to blog it… but I make the picture smaller so that people don’t recognize you all 😆

On my way home after work, I stop by at Pizza Hut Lintas to ‘tapau’ pizza. When the cashier is about to punch in my order, suddenly it blackout!!! damm… I ask if the kitchen blackout too? The cashier said YES!!!… damm, now what?… I waited for about 5 or so minutes but still blackout… I called a friend at Damai Luyang to find out if they have electricity… they do… I decided to go to Pizza Hut Damai… so off I go and I noticed the Lintas traffic lights are dead!!! shoot… lucky I don’t have to go through it.

After getting my large Hawaiian Supreme pizza… 14 minutes after I ordered it… I headed home. I avoided going through Lintas Road, so I used the Kinamount Road… but I was stuck there for more than 30 minutes because the cars can’t get out to Penampang Road. The Lido’s traffic lights are dead too. So, I turn to KK High School. I wanted to use the Penampang Bypass Road. When I reach the bypass, the traffic lights are dead too!!! But lucky the police are there to control the traffic… this is one of the time we really appreciate the Police… else you can see how much people hate them at Malaysia-Today 😆

The traffic ligths are dead… but the street lights are alive…
  

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Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd. (SESB) technician showing the bolts removed from the tower by the scrap metal thieves… (Berita Harian Online)

The biggest power outage in Sabah yesterday was caused by a collapsed of a high-tension pylon or tower in Inanam. The tower collapsed after about 20 pieces of its supporting bar were removed or stolen by scrap metal thieves.

The tower is surrounded with jungle in a hilly area and there are many PTI or Pendatang Tampa Izin or Illegal Immigrants squatters surrounding the area. Your guess is as good as mine…

We have been promised with empty promises of getting rid of these Illegal Immigrants and until now there is no concrete action. And this is the results when the authorities are not honoring their promises. Murder, kidnapping, rape, smuggling, robbery, guns…

Tower collapse causes major blackout
Sabah Hit By Massive Power Cut
Menara elektrik tumbang dipercayai akibat vandalisme
Outage leaves 80pc of Sabah in darkness
It’s lights out in Sabah after grid trips
Vandals blamed for Sabah blackout