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Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd suffered millions of ringgit in losses due to the damage caused by floods and continuous heavy rains lately.

“The floods and downpour caused various damage to the slopes of transmission line tower poles as well as damage to the poles of electricity distribution lines and power substations in the affected villages.

“However, SESB has taken initial interim mitigation measures on more than 50 line towers involved and managed to re-supply electricity to almost all consumers in the affected villages as soon as possible,” said its Chief Executive Officer Datuk Abdul Nasser Abdul Wahid.

He said SESB implemented various initiatives and mitigations to reduce the risk of power outage during natural disasters.

He said improvements would continue as there are new flood areas as well as new methods that can be used to reduce the impact on consumers.

“Among the initiatives were monitoring and periodic maintenance works as well as the provision of mobile power generator sets, especially in areas often hit by floods,” he said, during a visit to the flood sites in Kg Sugud and the transmission tower site in Kg Minintod, Penampang, Friday.

“Undoubtedly, there are places that need more time to be repaired due to inevitable constraints such as the difficulty of the technical team to enter the location due to impassable roads and unsafe conditions to do repair works.” Abdul Nasser said power poles and small substations which are mostly on the road shoulders are the installations most affected when natural disasters such as floods and landslides occur. Trees that fall due to landslides would hit poles and cables. While trees carried by the heavy floods are also able to damage small substations and the equipment in them.

“More than 100 distribution lines and two small power substations on the road shoulders were badly damaged. “More than 50 transmission line towers have also been affected by landslides due on the West Coast over the past two weeks.”

On the transmission tower in Kg Maang, Penampang, he said SESB had taken the appropriate interim measures to reduce erosion.

Abdul Nasser also said that for the high-risk tower poles, SESB together with the appointed consultants and contractors had started carrying out permanent rehabilitation and slope stabilisation works and monitored by SESB’s technical team.

“SESB also seeks the cooperation of the public not to spread untrue news related to SESB such as the allegation that we will cut off electricity supply on a large scale, because news like this is incorrect as SESB always has an operational mitigation plan to continue electricity supply. “Such false news will only cause panic and will not help the situation,” he said.

Consumers are advised to immediately report any emergency incident such as broken electrical wires, fallen poles and fallen trees on power lines to SESB Careline 15454 or 088-515000 or WhatsApp 019-852 5427.