Page 25 - Sphere No.29 (Jun 2011)

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Sphere
Two days after a devastating tornado
ripped through Hutchison’s Freeport Container Port (FCP),
in the Bahamas, the facility – amazingly – was ready to
resume partial operations. But the crews who had worked
so tirelessly to get the port functioning again had a higher
priority. They downed tools for a prayer service on site to
remember three colleagues who had lost their lives and
others who had been injured.
“Members of the HPH Executive Committee went
down to the terminal to talk to the families and employees
and offer them our condolences and comfort,” said Mark
Jack, Executive Director of Hong Kong-based Hutchison
Port Holdings (HPH), who was in Freeport following the
March 2010 tornado.
In addition, members of FCP’s human resources team
went to the homes of the bereaved to offer help or assis-
tance and visited the injured in hospital.
Exactly a year after the tragedy, members of the HPH
Executive Committee led by John Meredith, Group
Managing Director, and the Freeport management team,
headed by Gary Gilbert, CEO of FCP, attended an on-site
service at Freeport to honour the memory of the victims
and meet with their families.
The care and compassion shown at Freeport is not just
for colleagues at the port. Only a few weeks before the
tornado, employees co-ordinated the collection and
distribution of food and other necessities as part of
earthquake relief for the Caribbean nation of Haiti. It was
estimated that three million survivors were in need of
emergency aid after the devastating 7.0 magnitude quake
in January 2010.
Time and again Hutchison business units and
employees open their hearts — and pockets — to help
victims of natural disasters in their localities.
After Pakistan was devastated by floods during the
summer of 2010, HPH donated to a non-profit
organisation that was able to deliver food,
water and medicine to the worst-
affected provinces within 48 hours.
In addition, Karachi International
Container Terminal raised funds
and established shelters for flood
victims.
Following last year’s eruptions
in Indonesia of Mount Merapi,
in Central Java, and Mount
Sinabung, in North Sumatra,
Hutchison CP Telecommunications
set up free public phone services to
help hundreds of thousands who were
evacuated. Many employees of the Jakarta-
headquartered company raised funds to support
volunteers working in the stricken areas.
Meanwhile, staff at ESDlife, the Hutchison joint venture
which operates the popular Hong Kong lifestyle website of the same
name, raised funds for charities helping victims of both the earth-
quake in Haiti and that in Yushu, a remote and rugged region of the
Mainland’s Qinghai Province. Around 15,000 people were killed or
missing after that magnitude 6.9 quake in April last year.
When a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Abruzzo region
of Central Italy in April 2009, 3 Italia was on hand donating free
phone time and mobile phones. It also helped to raise
over EUR700,000 for rebuilding neighbourhoods.
In the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, which
in August 2009 became the deadliest typhoon
to impact Taiwan, employees of TOM sub-
sidiary CETV contributed TWD1 for
each comforting message sent by its
viewers to those affected. Watsons
Taiwan provided TWD3 million worth
of materials and TWD1 million to a
reconstruction programme aimed at
helping more than 1,000 children affected
by the typhoon.
Given the world’s escalating number of
natural disasters, international calls for relief and
reconstruction are unlikely to diminish in coming
years. But while actual events may be hard to predict, the
caring response from members of Hutchison’s global family is a
certainty.
All kinds of help are offered by Hutchison businesses and employees
in response to natural disasters. Pictured are: (top) the Shanghai
Hutchison Whampoa Pharmaceutical Hope Elementary School, built
after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake; (above left) a free telephone
service offered by Hutchison CP Telecommunications to people dis-
placed by volcanic eruptions in Indonesia last year, and (above right)
“Sports with Joy” games organised for Sichuan earthquake victims by
TOM Group, its subsidiary CETV and the Northern Star Foundation.
Hutchison
businesses and
employees are always
ready to help victims
of natural disasters.