Entry into Malaysia will be temporarily closed at Woodlands Checkpoint in the wee hours of Thursday morning

Photo: Schristia / Flickr
Photo: Schristia / Flickr

If you’ve made plans to hop on over across the Malaysian borders anytime tonight, cancel it. The Bangunan Sultan Iskandar (BSI) & Johor Bahru (JB) Sentral will be conducting an exercise at BSI CIQ Complex and JB Sentral Railway Station from midnight to 1am on Thursday, and the checkpoint will be briefly closed until the exercise ends.

The closure will affect the land borders at Woodlands Checkpoint, and Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) advised travelers to use the Tuas Checkpoint instead. Only if its urgent enough though — heck knows that the checkpoint in Tuas will be heavily congested with traffic thanks to it being the only way (temporarily) to cross into Malaysia by land tonight. Expect Woodlands Checkpoint to face severe congestion as well when motorists rush to the borders to make it in time before the closure.

According to Malaysian police, the operation is an evacuation exercise conducted routinely every year to ensure that the relevant government agencies are “prepared for any possibility”. The Johor Bahru South District police chief told Malaysian publication Bernama that the exercise will be carried out from 12am to 2am, an hour more than the period announced by ICA.

Of course, the routine exercise has nothing to do at all with the ongoing maritime dispute between Singapore and Malaysia that has seen both sides rattling their sabers.



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