Daredevil climber tells how she bypassed Merdeka 118 security, Malaysians fume

 

One of the daredevil Russian climbers who recently trespassed the Merdeka 118 tower before climbing to its top took to Twitter last night to detail how she managed to slip past security and construction workers.

Angela Nikolau's proud recount of her experience climbing the skyscraper, however, did not go down well with Malaysian netizens, many of whom had expressed their dismay with the woman and her partner's "disrespect" of the country's laws.

According to Nikolau, she had scouted the building to gather important details and plan the attempt by renting an apartment with a good view of Merdeka 118 for several weeks.

In a bid to avoid detection, the woman who dubbed herself as a “rooftopper” said she wore a hijab, glasses and donned a construction worker's outfit, and ran her way up 32 floors before taking a rest.

"I had to lie down on the concrete floor naked to cool down a little bit. I drank all the water I had," she said in one of her tweets, which was attached with photos of herself in disguise and another of her top-half shirtless body.

The woman, who is now being investigated by police, claimed that someone later noticed her presence before she had to run away and hid in a concrete box, where she spent more than 20 hours hiding from builders who were doing their work.

According to the woman, she then took the opportunity to sneak in when the workers went away for their break - and continued her climb to the rooftop.

"The spire itself was 53 floors high - and I was wearing a 15 kg backpack. If you look at the previous photo, you won't even see the bottom. I'm not sure I'd climb it if I knew how high it was.

“After I finished climbing, I did not feel my arms and could not lift them," she said.

Despite having committed trespassing and admitting to it in her tweet, Nikolau claimed that she "respects laws of every country", and that she "took special care not to cause any damage to anything".

Nikolau's tweets had been viewed over 330,000 times and shared almost 1,000 times.

While some from overseas celebrated her story, locals were not impressed by Nikolau's daredevil act.

Many had also tagged the authorities including the police and Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, urging them to take action against Nikolau and her partner.

"Love it when white people come here, break laws, tell people exactly how they did it, and still face absolutely no consequences," said a netizen.

"Lack of security. We are always reactive. Also, Immigration (Department) should blacklist her. And PNB should reprimand the company that ‘supposed’ to provide security," said another.

Last week, police reportedly said that they were investigating a video of the daredevil act after it went viral on social media.

Police tracking suspects

Meanwhile, according to Dang Wangi district police chief Noor Dellhan Yahaya, police were still tracking the two suspects.

He said police are checking with the Immigration Department to determine if the two were still in Malaysia.

"On Dec 31, police recorded the statements from nine individuals. We have also submitted an application to the Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for profiling the two individuals in the video.

"We have received a social media analysis report from MCMC today (Jan 5), and now waiting for feedback from the immigration and doing a forensic analysis on the video," he told reporters. - Mkini