Of course, excavators had appeared in East Africa much earlier, but the quality of those early products was truly hard to praise, so there was naturally no need to promote them on a large scale.
Excavators were naturally also in use elsewhere around the world, but they were all mechanical excavators—big, clumsy, and crude—generally used in mines. Mechanical excavators were also used in some East African mines, most typically coal mines.
Mechanical excavators were far less flexible than hydraulic excavators. In particular, their buckets could generally only make simple up-and-down motions.
Hydraulic excavators, on the other hand, were highly flexible, thanks to the extensive experience East Africa had accumulated in manufacturing tractors and tanks.
The emergence of hydraulic excavators could be said to have transformed the model of infrastructure construction in East Africa, and this was one of the major features of Bell Port's construction.
Of course, East Africa's use of hydraulic systems was clearly not limited to this. Mounted on trucks, they could handle unloading work for transport vehicles. This greatly improved loading and unloading efficiency, especially when transporting earth, grain, stone, and similar materials.
This was displayed to the fullest during the construction of Bell Port.
After Robkets finished speaking, the workers at Bell Port began their respective demonstrations.
The first step was to pump out the lake water. East African workers had already enclosed the construction area with a cofferdam, after which high-powered pumps drained the lake water inside it.
Then, under the guidance of the supervisors, the excavators entered the site and began scooping out the silt bucket by bucket. Transport vehicles followed close behind.
The excavators dumped the silt and ordinary soil into the beds of the vehicles, which then hauled the earth away.
Looking at the bustling construction site, Robkets could not help sighing.