DAMAGED CABLE BEHIND DISRUPTION
Third party conducted digging works without consulting Tenaga Nasional Berhad
THE Sungai Buloh–Kajang Line (SBKL) MRT service disruption on Wednesday was caused by a damaged power cable.
Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) said the cable between Kajang Transmission Main Intake and MRT Kajang Main Switching Station was damaged due to digging works conducted by a third party.
TNB, in a statement, said it had restored the supply by diverting power from alternative channels.
“The electricity supply was cut off at 12.09pm and fully restored after 70 minutes at 1.19pm. Repair work is ongoing.”
TNB urged those who wanted to carry out digging works to contact them for consultation to prevent such incidents from reoccurring.
On Thursday, MRT Corp had said that the service disruption was initially caused by the tripping of incoming power supply from TNB Kajang into the SBKL power sub-station at Kajang.
MRT Corp said the power outage affected the required uninterrupted power supply and multiple signalling equipment between Kajang and Batu 11 Cheras stations.
“It also caused damage that affected the movement of automatic trains in the area and the operations of the secondary MRT Depot in Kajang.”
MRT Corp said the alternate service mode was implemented at 12.28pm, where automatic train operations (ATO) continued between Sungai Buloh Station and Taman Suntex Station.
“Passengers were required to disembark and switch to the shuttle train service between Taman Suntex Station and Bandar Tun Hussein Onn Station.
“Complimentary shuttle bus services were implemented at 1.30pm, with four buses ferrying affected passengers between Bandar Tun Hussein Onn Station and Kajang Station.”
It said that upon re-establishing traction power by safe manual switching from the adjacent power sub-station, and after some of the signalling system regained their status at 1.31pm, the alternate service was improvised.
“ATO was extended from Sungai Buloh Station to Sungai Jernih Station. Shuttle train services were provided from Sungai Jernih Station to Kajang Station with two manually-operated trains.
“With the improvised alternate service, the shuttle bus services were terminated at 2.28pm. However, the signalling system between Stadium Kajang and Kajang stations remained halted, and rectification work done throughout the day until early this (yesterday) morning.”
Rectification work to replace damaged equipment was completed at 4am on Thursday and the MRT SBKL service was back to normal at 6am.