Major tech glitch leaves thousands stranded at Malaysia's borders

Thousands of people were left stranded in long queues at many of Malaysia's border entry points all across the country after a technical glitch crashed the entire immigration system on Thursday (May 28) morning.

All computer-based systems at immigration checkpoints in Malaysia were down from 4.30am to 9.30am, which led to immigration officers having to clear travellers manually, reported The Star. 

This was the second major crash in just over a month, the media outlet said, adding that a similar incident had left people stranded for about two hours on April 23.

In videos and photos uploaded to Facebook group 柔新关卡Both Checkpoint 分享站, long queues can be seen snaked through the immigration hall, leaving commuters with barely any breathing room.

Vehicles were also seen lining up the roads leading up to the immigration checkpoints in other videos as well.

Malaysia Immigration Department director-general Zakaria Shaa­ban told The Star that the incident had started at about 5pm, and lasted until 8.45am due to technical issues at the Malaysian Immig­ration Systems (MyIMMs) data centre.

The system was back online after some "rectifying work" had been done, Shaaban said, before ruling out the possibility of a system breach.

An AsiaOne reader who was at Woodlands Checkpoint said that there was no queue when she was there at about 11am today (May 29).

"The MyIMMs system is old and I cannot ensure that such a problem will not recur," he told The Star. "Problems are bound to happen".

A new system, the National Integrated Immigration System (NIISe), is set to replace MyIMMs by 2028. Shaaban added that such disruptions may be expected until the NIISe is up and running.

"We will endure them until the NIISe system is ready," he said.

Long queues at Singapore-Johor checkpoints

An official for Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs told The Star that the glitch had affected most of the country's 114 immigration checkpoints nationwide.

Long queues were especially reported at the Singapore-Johor land checkpoints, said the official, as many Malaysians were crossing the border to report to work.

"We had to redeploy all our personnel to man manual counters at the bus halls, motorcycle and vehicles lanes," the official told The Star, noting that security personnel were deployed at the checkpoints to maintain order.

"Not only were our autogates down, even our facial recognititon systems were also out," the official added.

Long queues expected for holidays

Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) had on Friday (May 22) advised travellers to expect heavy traffic at Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints from May 26 to June 28 due to Hari Raya Haji (May 27), the Vesak Day (June 1) long weekend, as well as the forthcoming June school holidays.

ICA also added that security checks have been stepped up since Feb 28 in light of the heightened global security environment.

Anyone intending to go through both checkpoints during this time are advised to plan their journey ahead and consider travelling during non-peak hours such as early mornings and late evenings.

They may also check the Land Transport Authority's One Motoring website and ICA's social media pages for the latest traffic information.

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daoen.wong@asiaone.com