Major north-south railway track demolished by opposition forces
The major railway artery linking northern city of Mandalay and southern Yangon city, the largest and economic hub of Myanmar, was demolished by opposition forces on 24 October 2023 about ten minutes before midnight.
According to the news released by the Ministry of Myanmar Railway, the tracks located in Bago division, Kyauktaga township were sabotaged with explosives at two sections in mile posts 104/0-1 and bridge No 146-147. There is no report of casualty since two scheduled passenger trains and two freight trains heading toward the damaged section received the report of incident. The emergency service crew repaired the track for 8 band half hours and and railway services resume the services in the following morning.
The Railway Department reported on their official social media page that there have been 128 destructions of railway track with explosives, 45 destruction of railway bridges and 12 arsons of buildings owned by the state railway department since the coup on 1 February 2021 to October 2023 period.
The area where the incident happened is on the western bank of Sittaung river which is in the opposite bank of Karen state and jointly controlled by the ethnic Karen armed group and PDF, the armed opposition group formed after 2021 coup. Although there is no claim of responsibility by anyone yet, the destruction of state own railway tracks and attack on trains are carried out by various armed group through the bloody history of 75 year civil war since 1949.
The 716 km railways linking Yangon-Mandalay was built by British colonial administration in 1889 and upgraded with JICA-Japanese International Cooperation Agency’s USD $378 million loan on 2020. The travel normally takes 17-18 hours before 2021 coup but it take more than 24 hr or total closure of services depending on the security situation. Anyone who travel on Myanmar passenger train today will witness, fully armed police guarding on the rail cars which frequently stop on the way for the police take up security perimeter while other security team searching the explosives on the rail track.
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