No Y2K worries in busy Malacca strait<\/p>\n
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): It will be business as usual on Dec.
\n31 in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest
\nwaterways, with no entry restrictions on vessels, a Malaysian
\nmaritime official said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A new Vessel Traffic Separation (VTS) system for the strait,
\nput in place by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in recent
\nyears, has assured maritime regulators of the safety of the
\nwaterway despite fears of the millennium bug, the official said.<\/p>\n
\"We won't stop any ships from coming into the strait come
\nDecember 31,\" Mohamad Hashim, a supervisor with the Malaysian
\nMaritime Rescue and Coordination Center (MRCC), told Reuters by
\ntelephone.<\/p>\n
\"All we ask is that the ships that come in have navigation
\nsystems which are Y2K compliant.\"<\/p>\n
Hashim said the Malaysian MRCC, an unit of the Malaysian
\nMaritime Department, had its own contingency plan for the Y2K or
\nmillennium bug, and would run this for a week between and after
\nthe New Year.<\/p>\n
\"We have upgraded our VTS system to fit Y2K requirements and
\nwill be monitoring it daily between December 27 and January 4,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
The Y2K bug refers to problems some computer systems may have
\nwhen the year 2000 starts since they were programmed to read only
\nthe last two digits of a date and could mistake 2000 for 1900.<\/p>\n
The Strait of Malacca, separating Malaysia, Indonesia and
\nSingapore, is a strategic route for oil tankers plying between
\nthe Middle East and North Asia, with more than 600 ships entering
\nthe waters daily at one time.<\/p>\n
In the early 1990s, the narrow waterway proved hazardous to
\nvessels in the absence of a proper traffic separation system, and
\nmany collisions were reported. Pirates also roamed the waters,
\nmaking it more perilous.<\/p>\n
The introduction of the VTS in the late 1990s has almost
\neliminated accidents in the waterway. \"It is virtually like a
\nhighway, separating ships into different lanes like cars,\" Hashim
\nsaid of the system.<\/p>\n
But pirate attacks have continued unabated, and fewer ships
\nenter the strait these days.<\/p>",
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