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Sunday 12 September 2010

Fire on Penang Bridge disrupts traffic

GEORGE TOWN: Thousands of vehicles were stranded on the Penang Bridge after Tenaga Nasional Bhd's high-voltage cables caught fire at Km2, Perai, heading here today.

Tenaga Nasional vice-president for transmission Rozimi Remeli said the incident, at about 10am, involved three 132KW cables under the bridge.

A Penang Bridge Sdn Bhd spokesman said the fire forced the closure of the right lanes on both ways of the bridge, causing traffic congestion stretching about 10km.

Black smoke was billowing from under the bridge.

However, traffic flow had returned to normalcy this evening. The spokesman said the traffic flow was back as usual about 6pm.

Rozimi said that power disruption was limited to several areas like Bayan Baru, George Town and Gelugor.

"We managed to restore powers to these areas within two minutes after thefire," he told reporters at the scene.

He also assured the people in the state that power would be sufficient to meet the demand.

"We apologise to the affected consumers,” he said, adding that apart from powers from Seberang Perai, Penang also received supply from the Gelugor and Juru plants channelled via submarine cables.

He said Tenaga Nasional was now identifying the cause of the incident.

Similar incident took place in 1995, he added.

- Bernama

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