Estimates vary but, of more than 60,000 prisoners of war enslaved on the Death Railway, almost 13,000 are believed to have died, in addition to as many as 90,000 southeast Asian civilian forced labourers. The Death Railway earned its name from the sheer number of lives lost during its construction, including that of railway bridge number 277 in June 1943, allowing the track to cross what is today known as the Khwae Noi River, and which has become recognised worldwide as the Bridge on the River Kwai. Bombed in 1944 by the Allies, sections of the bridge were destroyed and are now displayed in the War Museum. It was meant to transport cargo daily close to India, to back up the planned Japanese attack on India. The work started in October 1942 and was completed in a year. It was built using POWs and Asian slave laborers who were kept in awful conditions. The railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. It is famously known as the setting for the a 1957 World War Two epic Bridge over the River Kwai. The Kwai River Bridge was part of the meter-gauge railway constructed by the Japanese during World War Two.
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