WWII Death Railway Station Emerges From Reservoir in Thailand

Nithe Station, a depot along Thailand's infamous 'Death Railway' built by Allied POWs and Asian civilians during WWII, has been exposed after the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand drained the Vajiralongkorn Dam reservoir in Kanchanaburi province for maintenance. The station, submerged for decades, is now accessible for a limited time before seasonal rains and dam repairs may re-submerge it by August. Researchers, including Martyn Fryer (an independent Australian researcher whose grandfather died as a POW on the railway) and Andrew Snow from the Thailand–Burma Railway Center, are studying the site using old aerial photographs and metal detectors. The 257-mile railway connected Thailand (then Siam) with Myanmar (then Burma), built between 1942 and 1943 by some 60,000 POWs (primarily from Australia, the US, UK, and Indonesia) and hundreds of thousands of Asian civilians. An estimated 12,500 POWs and 75,000 civilians died from maltreatment, starvation, overwork, and disease. The railway was designed after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 to supply Japan's planned invasion of India, requiring 600 bridges and over 100 forced-labor camps. The entire line has been out of commission since the war's end; other sites like Hell Fire Pass and Wang Pho Viaduct are now memorials. The 1957 film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' fictionalized the railway's construction and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.