Fire incident occurs at Dasu hydropower project site

Kohistan: A fire incident hit the camp of a Chinese company managing the construction of a remote hydropower dam in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday but there was no loss of life, police said.

According to police the pre-dawn blaze ruined a warehouse complex for the Dasu hydropower project in the Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“It was a huge fire. Initially, the flames were very high and we had to call for fire brigade vehicles from two other districts. It was quite a big storehouse, and apart from oil drums, stationery and machinery were also stockpiled there. That’s all destroyed in the fire but the situation has been taken under control now,” said a police official.

In 2017, Pakistan’s water ministry awarded the construction contract for the Dasu dam to the China Gezhouba Group Company. The camp housed Chinese engineers, surveyors and mechanics, but both police and Rescue 1122 said none were injured or killed. An electrical fault was the suspected cause of the fire.

Since 2015, Beijing has poured billions of dollars into Pakistan under an investment scheme known as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Private firms have also flooded over the border to service contracts on ambitious infrastructure projects.

In July 2021, 12 people – including nine Chinese workers – died aboard a bus carrying staff to the Dasu site. The work was stopped for a while but Pakistan and China managed to resume work after consultations.