Anxious moment for 36 tourists as Taming Sari Tower stops mid-way

MELAKA - Thirty-six visitors to Taming Sari Tower in Banda Hilir here faced an anxious moment when the platform of the revolving gyro tower stopped moving, leaving them hanging at a height of 60 metres.

One of the victims, Zuliani Zulkeple, 42, from Bidong, Kedah, said she and her 13 family members took the ride on the 110-metre-tall tower at 5.30pm.

"The platform did a 360-degree turn twice while at the top before coming to a complete stop. I assumed the platform came to a halt to allow tourists to take pictures.

"After a while, I discovered that the platform had stopped due to a power outage. There were tourists who experienced shortness of breath because the platform only has one service door and no windows.

"Fortunately, the management of the tower sent maintenance workers to carry out repair work on the platform,” the nurse at the Sultan Abdul Halim Hospital, Sungai Petani, told Bernama here today.

Zuliani said that the maintenance workers had to manually bring down the platform in order for all of the passengers to be able to exit safely.

"Once we got to the bottom, fire personnel had to pry open the door to enable all tourists to leave the platform due to the power outage. We made it out safely at 6.30pm,” she said.

Meanwhile, Melaka Fire and Rescue Department spokesperson Assistant Fire Superintendent Mohd Hanif Mustafa said they received a distress call regarding the incident at 5.58pm and arrived at the scene about seven minutes later.

He said the maintenance crew brought all the tourists down using a supplementary motor.

"We also oversee the rescue operation to ensure the safety of all the victims, who included 26 adults, eight children, one elderly person and one person with disabilities,” he said. - BERNAMA