Gokteik Bridge, Myanmar’s highest rail crossing, destroyed in civil war | World News

The Gokteik Bridge, once the tallest railway trestle in the world and a colonial-era symbol of British engineering in Myanmar, has been destroyed in the country’s civil war.
The bridge, which towered 335 feet above a gorge in Shan State and was still the highest bridge in Myanmar, collapsed this week after being struck in fighting between the ruling military junta and armed resance groups.
Myanmar’s war is the product of a long and violent hory. The country spent decades under military rule, from 1962 until 2011, when it began a slow transition toward democracy. A nominally civilian government was formed, and in 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a horic landslide election. But the military never gave up real power. In 2021, it seized control again in a coup, cutting short Myanmar’s democratic experiment.
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The coup was met with nationwide protests, which the junta crushed with deadly force. Civilians responded forming armed resance groups—known as People’s Defence Forces—and allying with long-established ethnic militias like the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. Today, the junta is fighting on multiple fronts.
A BBC study estimates the military controls only 21 percent of Myanmar’s territory. It has been accused of bombing schools and hospitals, burning villages, carrying out massacres, and torturing critics. Even within pro-military circles, calls have grown for the resignation of Min Aung Hlaing, the junta’s leader, though he has shown no signs of stepping down.
In a video statement, junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun accused the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and allied people’s defence forces of having “bombed and destroyed” the bridge, adding that explosives were used to bring it down.
The TNLA denied this, and in turn accused the junta of responsibility. “[The] Myanmar army tried to bomb our bases … this morning using drones,” said TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo. “They bombed our troops, but their bomb also hit Gokteik bridge.”Story continues below this ad
The destruction comes after weeks of clashes in Shan State, where junta forces and the TNLA have battled for control of near towns.