KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — Tens of thousands of travellers braved massive queues at all entry points across Malaysia yesterday, after the national immigration system collapsed once again following a major technical glitch.

Immigration officers were left scrambling to clear locals and foreigners manually after all computer-based systems went offline for five hours between 4.30 am and 9.30 am on May 28, The Star reported.

This marks the second major system failure in just over a month; a similar incident left thousands stranded for approximately two hours on April 23.

While many commuters complained of being stuck from as early as 4.30 am, Immigration Department Director-General Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said the incident began at about 5.00 am and lasted until 8.45 am due to technical issues at the Malaysian Immigration System (MyIMMs) data centre.

“The system was back online after rectification work was carried out. The system was not hacked. The MyIMMs system is antiquated, and I cannot ensure that such a problem will not recur,” he said.

“The MyIMMs system is already 30 years old. Problems are bound to happen.”

A new platform, known as the National Integrated Immigration System (NIISe), is slated to replace MyIMMs by 2028.

Still, Zakaria warned that such disruptions might recur until the NIISe system is fully operational.

“We will have to endure them until the NIISe system is ready,” he said.

Earlier in May, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, during a visit to Johor, said the vendor for NIISe had been told to prepare mitigation plans ahead of the commencement of the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link operations in 2027.

The government, he said, is committed to minimising any form of technical disruption in the new system.

A Home Ministry official confirmed that the latest disruption affected most of the 114 checkpoints nationwide. Malaysia operates a total of 56 entry points via sea, 30 via land, and 28 via air.

The official noted that bottlenecks were most severe at both land checkpoints in Johor, as the crash occurred during the “peak time” for tens of thousands of Malaysians rushing to Singapore for work.

“We had to redeploy all our personnel to man manual counters at the bus halls, motorcycle, and vehicle lanes.

“Not only were our autogates down, but even our facial recognition systems were also out,” the official said, adding that additional security personnel were deployed to maintain order.