BEIJING, Jan.25 -- Recently, China's 24th peacekeeping engineer contingent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) effectively completed the task of repairing the N2 road in the DRC, despite the complicated pandemic and security situation in the mission area.
The N2 road is an artery passage in the east of the DRC. Due to heavy rains, a bridge along with the river course, and two culverts in Kalehe, Sud-Kivu Province, were destroyed, while some sections of the road collapsed, impeding the flow of vehicles and pedestrians.
Upon accepting the repairing task, a 20-member engineer team of the Chinese peacekeeping force set out for the temporary deployment location to carry out the repair work, along with engineering equipments including shovel loader, excavator, and dump truck.
"The time is pressing, and the task to repair the bridge and culverts is urgent," said Zhu Hongtao, commanding officer of the construction squadron under the Chinese peacekeeping engineer contingent. "Moreover, the complicated security situation in the locale makes the task more difficult."
Zhu and his teammates carried out repairs simultaneously in multiple locations using both manpower and equipment. They cleaned the river course, built embankments, and used gabions to reinforce bridge piers and steel tubes to make balustrades on the bridge, so as to ensure the safe passage of pedestrians and vehicles.
The culverts were severely blocked by silt and garbage. Due to their limited space, repairers had to squad in the culverts and manually removed mud and debris by turns. In sections where roadbeds collapsed, they reconnected damaged culverts and used prefabricated net cases with gravels and stones to reinforce the embankments, and then refilled gaps with gabions filled with rocks.
Throughout the construction process, the Chinese peacekeeping engineers strictly followed measures for epidemic prevention and control and strengthened vigilance to ensure security.
Within 16 days, they removed more than 500 cubic meters of sludge and set up 13 net cases and 50 gabions. The damaged bridge, river course, roadbeds, and culverts were all repaired promptly. Many passers gave a thumbs-up to Chinese peacekeepers for their remarkable work.
