 Victor Koh Dut Sye, a storekeeper nearby there, recalled that the power station's workers were mainly of Cantonese and Indian origins and were very unskilled, or limited in skills at best, and mostly illiterate.These were the workers assisting the British engineers in charge through lots of trial-and-error tests and experiments that would sometimes, if not often fail.This led to the most extensive power cut in 1948 which lasted for eight and a half hours, affecting all the non-city areas of Singapore from 8am to 4.30pm and a widespread blackout in 1950 when electricity to the entire island was cut off for one and a half hours.