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A white-haired elderly man collapsed at the base of an escalator at Johor Bahru Sentral recently (11 Sep), his foot caught in the exit plate of the escalator used by train commuters arriving from Singapore.
The incident occurred near the Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex — the building where, in 2022, then prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob arrived unannounced and personally ordered management to fix the broken escalators and autogates.
JB Sentral and the Sultan Iskandar CIQ Complex are separate structures, but they are seamlessly connected under one giant megastructure officially known as the Southern Integrated Gateway — two wings of the same central transport and border hub handling hundreds of thousands of daily crossings between Malaysia and Singapore.
The 42-second video that followed went viral across social media.
In it, a woman lunges to drag luggage out of the path of arriving passengers still pouring down the escalator toward the fallen man.
A stranger in a blue shirt crouches to cradle the elderly man’s head while a female checkpoint officer arrives, assesses the situation, and radios for medical assistance.
The escalator did not stop.
Commuters continued descending toward the man on the floor, bags and all, as bystanders worked to prevent a pile-up.
Money Was Allocated, The Escalator Didn’t Care
It is not the first time.
In 2014, a four-year-old boy’s foot became trapped in the side panel of a JB Sentral escalator; an emergency team was deployed to free him.
In July 2025, commuters were trapped inside a lift at the Johor Immigration Centre with no technician on site; members of the public forced the doors open manually.
Regular commuters note that the lifts at JB Sentral are frequently out of service.
Elderly travellers, families with young children, and passengers with heavy luggage are left with one option: the escalators.
In April 2022, the Johor state government formed a dedicated task force after congestion at the JB Sentral–BSI pedestrian bridge went viral — caused in part by escalator repair works on the same corridor.
A broken lift that had circulated on social media was repaired; a free shuttle bus was deployed, and officials promised to monitor the situation.
In October 2025, the Federal Finance Ministry responded to years of commuter frustration by announcing an allocation to comprehensively replace the lifts and escalators at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar and JB Sentral under Budget 2026.
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