KANCHANABURI — The remnants of Nithe Station, a depot on the Death Railway, have resurfaced from beneath a reservoir at the Vajiralongkorn Dam in Thailand's Kanchanaburi province. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand recently drained the reservoir for maintenance, revealing the site that had been submerged for decades.

Researchers are surveying the site for artifacts and historical verification. Martyn Fryer, an Australian researcher, traveled to Kanchanaburi province and used a metal detector to scan historic railway embankments at the site. He recovered iron dog spikes, bridge staples, and other material artifacts. "I have been to Nithe Station three times in the past, but the water level has always been too high to actually really appreciate the fantastic offerings that it has with the remaining infrastructure and the layout of the railway itself," Fryer said. Fryer compared wartime aerial photographs from the National Archives in London with hand-charted maps to locate prisoner of war camps near the station.

Andrew Snow, a researcher affiliated with the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, said, "It is a good opportunity for us to do some surveying." "When you are dealing with relatives of people that worked on the railway, it is always nice to be able to show them the areas that maybe their relative worked on." Hundreds of visitors from Thailand have traveled to view the exposed station, with Channarong Noimala traveling approximately 350 kilometers from Bangkok to visit the area. Noimala said, "At least for those who died here, no matter whether they are laborers or prisoners of war, we can remember them."

Nithe Station was a major stop along the 415-kilometer railway connecting Thailand, then known as Siam, with Myanmar, which was then known as Burma. The railway served as a supply route through mainland Southeast Asia for occupying Japanese forces during World War II. Approximately 60,000 Allied prisoners of war, primarily from Australia, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Indonesia, worked on the railway, along with hundreds of thousands of Asian laborers designated römusha. More than 12,500 Allied prisoners of war and approximately 75,000 Asian laborers died during the railway's construction, leading it to be commonly referred to as the Death Railway. The railway's history has been depicted in films such as the 1957 film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and the 2013 film "The Railway Man."

The reservoir maintenance is scheduled to conclude in August, and the site may be refilled by Southeast Asia's rainy season following the maintenance. Reservoir water levels dropped substantially this year, which caused the rapid draining and prevented vegetation regrowth.