Nearly a quarter of a million people were left without electricity over the weekend in Malaysia’s Sabah state after torrential rain triggered landslides that killed at least one person and took out a transmission tower that cut power across a large area.
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Footage shared widely on social media showed the tower leaning precariously after it was hit by a landslide in the district of Penampang on the state’s west coast on Saturday evening.
The incident cut power supply to six districts in Sabah’s east coast, including the town of Sandakan, over 300km (186 miles) away.
State power company Sabah Electricity said power had been gradually restored in some parts of the affected areas on Sunday, but other parts of the state on Malaysia in northern Borneo remained without energy on Monday.
Malaysia has been struggling to deal with extreme weather events in recent years, as the climate crisis worsens droughts and rains, decimating crops and damaging homes and public infrastructure.
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Sabah Chief Minister Hajiji Noor said in a statement on Sunday that work was under way to build an emergency transmission tower, which was expected to take eight days to complete, to restore full connectivity, with preparations made to build a new permanent tower.