KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA: A fast-track Tenaga Nasional Berhad transmission tower to replace the one stolen by scrap metal thieves collapsed, killing a man and injuring four others.

Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SSEB) in a statement identified the dead as Mohd Hairrisham Mohhamad, 26. The injured were Hamran Mohamad, Vijaya Kumar , Adnan Hassan and Khairul Azman Che Soh who were all treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital after initial treatment at Likas Hospital here.

Both Tenaga Nasional Berhad and SSEB are puzzled as to how the emergency restoration system (ERS) tower could have toppled at Suang Parai in Inanam here at about 10.30am yesterday.

One of the injured technicians is reported to be in critical condition at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the other three are at the Likas Hospital. No details of their condition were made available.

The 35m aluminium alloy ERS tower was a temporary replacement for the 132kV tower, parts of which were stolen by thieves on April 21causing a blackout covering 90% of Sabah.

Materials for the RM3.4m ERS were specially flown in by the Air Force the day after the black out with 30 TNB emergency response team members also brought in from Kuala Lumpur to erect the tower for normal power supply to resume.

At 10.30am yesterday, workers were fixing the conductors to the newly-erected tower when it collapsed. There were five workers perched on top at various points along the beam with 25 others working on the ground.

Reporters were stopped from entering the site along the gravel road between Kayu Madang and Universiti Malaysia Sabah as police tried to ascertain the cause of the collapse.

Kota Kinabalu city police chief Asst Comm Ahmad Sofi Zakaria said police do not suspect the involvement of any criminal element but were waiting for technical reports from geologist and Sabah Electricity officials to ascertain the cause.

He said police have secured the area to facilitate further investigations and asked villagers to use an alternative road to the kampungs.

TNB, in a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur, said that one of the four cables supporting the ERS had unplugged and had apparently made the tower unstable before three other supporting cables also unplugged, causing the tower to topple.