River Kwai bridge

The bridge over the River Kwai in Nov 2009. The round truss spans are the originals; the angular replacements were supplied by the Japanese as war reparations.

The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre.
(By the way: most of the people call this bridge with a wrong pronunciation, (Kwai "ai like in the word "Shanghai", which would mean "Buffalo river".
I was learned this is wrong!
The word "Kwai" should be pronounced with "ey" or "aei" like in the word "Hey" and it means "the river spreads into two rivers, in Khwae Noi River (small river) and Khwae Yai River (big river).
The rivers name Kwai hasn't its name from the thai name Kwai กระบือ = buffalo.)

Here two photos showing the bridge after its destruction: