Cable Thieves On The Prowl

On Thursday morning, around 10.00 am, a blackout occured at HS Industrial Park, the area where my office is located. At first I thought it was only a minor disturbances (that happens once in a while), but this time it was different. A few lighting circuitry has automatically cut-off due to a sudden strong surge of electricity. Other lightings which are still functioning suddenly made a loud buzzing noise. Seeing the situation, I immediately turned off the Circuit Breaker and all the switches and sockets.

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Me, my boss and all the staffs inside the office were shocked by the situation, and we immediately called up SESB (Sabah Electrical S/B) to inform them about the matter. We came out from the office to check out the other buildings, to see if they are experiencing a similar condition. The whole area experienced the same thing, furthermore, a few shops and offices were badly hit as the Power Surge has effectively destroyed their computers, electrical appliances and machineries.

The SESB personnel arrived about 45 minutes later, and they immediately checked the Feeder Pillar inside the Sub-station. To their and our surprise, the Copper Cable (normally used as a Neutral Cable) has been stolen. The thieves has forced their way into the Sub-station by cutting the padlock that was installed to lock the entrance door. The thieves didn't cut those cables as there are traces of bolts and nuts still laying on the floor. Which means, these thieves were not in a hurry as they took their time to properly removes those bolts and nuts that holds the cables.

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I guess, these thieves are not just any random thieves, as they knew and skillful in identifying which cables that they can steal without having to worry about being electrocuted. The SESB Personnel informed us that cable thieves has been acting quite rampant lately as there are many similar cases in other areas too. It took about 30 minutes for the SESB guys to temporarily fixed the problem to ensure that business can be performed as usual at least, until they can find the proper cable as a replacement.

Such situation is a great loss to business as all operations had to behalted for nearly half of the day. Much more worse, some shops has to stop their business temporarily to replace or get the machineries fixed. Cable thieves is a social problem that needs to be eradicated. Its not a responsibility burdened only by SESB and the enforcement agencies, but also the responsibility of all civic-minded people. We all need to work together to prevent such incident to happen.