Breakdown of Вчера МЧС помогло нам.
мы
we
вчера
yesterday
помочь
to help (perfective)
МЧС
Ministry of Emergency Situations
Questions & Answers about Вчера МЧС помогло нам.
Why does the verb помогло have a neuter ending?
МЧС is an initialism for Министерство по чрезвычайным ситуациям (Ministry of Emergency Situations). For most indeclinable initialisms, the grammatical gender is determined by the core word. Since министерство is a neuter noun, МЧС acts as neuter, making the past-tense verb take the neuter ending -о.
I thought acronyms ending in a consonant were sometimes treated as masculine nouns. Why isn't that the case here?
That rule applies mainly to acronyms you can pronounce as a single word (like МИД or вуз). МЧС is an initialism pronounced letter by letter (эм-че-эс). These almost always take the gender of their underlying core word rather than taking on a new masculine gender based on their spelling.
Why do we use the dative pronoun нам instead of the accusative нас?
The verb помочь (to help) always dictates that the person being helped must be in the dative case. Нам is the dative form of мы (we).
How do Russian speakers actually pronounce МЧС in this sentence?
It is pronounced by its individual letters: эм-че-эс (em-che-es). Because it is an indeclinable abbreviation, this pronunciation stays exactly the same no matter what grammatical role it plays in the sentence.