POWERCHINA says it has donated funds, repaired roads and agricultural infrastructure and helped local employees overcome the disaster following this year’s devastative floods and heavy monsoon rains. Since mid-June, under the influence of the monsoon season, many provinces in Pakistan have been hit by unprecedentedly severe floods. POWERCHINA said in a statement on Wednesday that it has also played a leading role in donating money to the flood-affected people in Pakistan, and received positive response and strong support from the Association. Giving details of the aid and relief activities, it said the first batch of donations was raised on 26 August for the flood- affected Pakistani brothers to rebuild their homes.

After the first timely donation, as the disaster continued to worsen, in response to the call of the Pakistani government, POWERCHINA made a further donation of USD 104,000 to the Prime Minister's Flood Relief Fund on October 21. POWERCHINA also participated in a second round of donations to the Chinese Embassy and APCEA. The Chinese staff, enthusiastically and spontaneously donated tents worth about 2 million rupees and officially handed over to the Islamabad Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry and to a Baluchistan-based party at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan on December 1. In the face of the sudden flooding, Diamer Bhasha Dam Project was also seriously affected by the flooding.

The project department responded quickly to the flooding, and after surveying the affected site, formulated a relief plan and sent a rescue team with excavators and other large machinery and equipment to participate in the rescue and relief work, helping local villagers to clean up the collapsed road sections, to remove the hazards off the road and backfill the irrigation canal foundation. After four days of reconstruction, the 8 km collapsed roads were cleared and the main road to the nearby villages was restored, thus helping the locals to get out of the trouble. Affected by secondary disasters such as landslides and triggered by floods, many sections of the Karakorum Highway, the main road to and from the project construction site, were either eroded or actively closed, and the construction and logistical materials required for the project could not be delivered to the site for quite some time.

The project manager said, "The tougher it is, the more courageous we have to be." Despite the extremely difficult times, the project is still actively assuming social responsibility, demonstrating the responsibility and commitment of a "great power". "Our ability is limited, but we want to do our bit to help this country". The project staff said. In addition, POWERCHINA has taken an initiative to collect and understand the disaster situation of local employees and their families, and has helped near one thousand employees to return to their hometowns. For the hundreds of employees who could not return to their hometowns due to road blockage, POWERCHINA has provided free accommodation and food to relieve their worries.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP