NEWS & UPDATE

BINTULU
15 MAY 2025

Power supply to parts of Bintulu town and surrounding areas was disrupted on Saturday, 11 May 2025, after underground cables from the Bintulu Town Zone Substation were damaged by third-party excavation works along Jalan Sultan Iskandar. Syarikat SESCO Berhad (SESCO), Sarawak Energy’s retail and operations arm, quickly responded to the incident. The first outage occurred at 8.55am and supply to most areas was restored within 40 minutes. 

However, a second cable fault at 11.57am caused further interruptions, with full restoration completed by 11.59pm following extensive repairs.

The affected areas included Taman Sutera, Pine Avenue, Parkcity 4 and neighbouring communities.

“Restoration was challenging due to muddy conditions and the severity of the damage,” said Hung Sing Ye, SESCO’s Regional Manager for Bintulu. “Despite this, our teams worked safely and continuously to restore supply as quickly as possible to the affected areas.”

To reduce the impact during the outage, SESCO deployed two mobile generator sets to support critical facilities including the Bintulu police station and parts of affected residential areas.

“The contractor responsible for the cable damage will bear the cost of repairs.’ said Hung.

SESCO thanks customers for their patience and reaffirms its commitment to delivering reliable power supply. To avoid similar incidents, preventive measures are being implemented to enhance the resilience of the power network. SESCO is also stepping up its engagement with third-party contractors to reduce the risk of accidental cable damage during excavation works.

Customers can report power supply issues through the SEB cares mobile app and web portal, contact the Customer Care Centre at 1300-88-3111, or chat with virtual agent CARINA.

Damaged underground cable (indicated by red arrow) caused by third-party excavation works, leading to the Bintulu power outage on 11 May

SESCO’s technical team carrying out repair works to restore supply as quickly and safely as possible