The Padma Bridge railway connection project under construction is a key infrastructure project in Bangladesh. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the construction of the sleeper production plant for the connecting line project covering an area of 11 acres was completed and passed the inspection by Bangladesh in mid-July.
As an active participant in the construction of the “Belt and Road”, Bangladesh has cooperated with China in many major infrastructure projects in recent years, and the 170-kilometer connection line project is one of them. The project was undertaken by China Railway Group, with a total price of more than 3.1 billion US dollars. After completion, it will greatly promote the interconnection and economic development of Bangladesh and South Asia.
According to the project department, as an important node project of the connecting line project, the plant will become the first fully automatic sleeper production plant in Bangladesh. All of its sleeper production line equipment comes from China and will produce 370,000 sleepers for the connection line project.
Gao Zhifeng, manager of the China Railway First Bureau, who participated in the construction of the plant, said that Bangladesh has dense river networks and frequent seasonal floods. When the construction of the factory started in September last year, the original site was full of oceans. The project department seized the construction during the dry season. In January of this year, the foundation and site leveling were completed and the construction of the factory was started. Since then, as the epidemic spread globally, the progress of the project encountered major challenges. It was originally scheduled that after the Spring Festival, the Chinese technicians in Bangladesh could not make the trip, and it was difficult for equipment and raw materials to reach the project site on schedule due to the epidemic.
Since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was discovered in Bangladesh in March, the country’s cumulative number of confirmed cases has exceeded 250,000, and it is currently increasing at an average rate of approximately 2,500 new cases per day.
Affected by the epidemic, engineers from domestic equipment manufacturers could not reach the site, so the Chinese employees of the project department led the Bangladeshi employees to assemble the production line by themselves. The sleeper production line is highly electronic and the circuit system is complex. The employees successfully assembled under the online guidance of the factory’s engineers.
The weather in South Asia is extremely hot and humid. Workers have to wear masks at all times to deal with the epidemic. Sweat soaks their work clothes, and the scars of the masks are left on their tanned faces.
In response to the epidemic, the project department implements fully enclosed, regionalized, and grid management. The deputy manager of the work area, Li Yongjin, is responsible for the management of 20 Chinese personnel and more than 100 local workers in the construction of the plant. Daily temperature measurement, disinfection, safety and epidemic prevention Measures and inspections are equally important.
Through the project department, the knowledge of epidemic prevention and control is constantly introduced. Local employees not only consciously abide by the epidemic prevention regulations, but also distribute the Mongolian epidemic prevention manual produced by the project department to relatives and friends to help more locals.
