Jaloon Htaw : After a month of work, repair efforts to a bridge in Kawkareik Township, along the vital trade rout between Mae Sot and Rangoon continue, according to area residents.
“They began repairs one month ago and have been repairing [the bridge] one side and then another side. It will take a long time for it [to be] finished,” a villager from near by Kyondo village, said of the delays. “[Its slow] because the bridge is very broken.”
The damage to the Gyaing-Kawkareik bridge, which had been slowly increasing due to ware and tare, was finally reported in June 2009. Since then 12 wheeled trucks and other larger vehicles have had trouble passing the bridge.
“Now, on the Gyaing-Kawkareik bridge [no vehicles] can cross that weigh over 20 tons. So we have to use small trucks to carry the commodities across the bridge, [which costs us] 30,000 kyats per small truck,” explained a broker who trades produce between Yangon and Myawaddy. “The bridge can’t withstand [my truck] because my truck is very heavy – it’s a 12 wheel truck…Now we are losing money and are getting tired [of this].”
The Gyaing-Kawkareik is a crucial crossing for traffic. The bridge crosses the Gyaing-Kawkareik river on the highway road connecting Rangoon, Hpa-an, Myawaddy, and Mea Sot. The trade route is one of the most important for shipping goods between Thailand and Burma.
According to Burmese government newspaper, New Light of Myanmar, on January 14th, Lieutenant-General Khin Zaw and his members of his staff visited the Gyaing-Kawkareik bridge, to see what progress was being made.
“Now [because] they are repairing the bridge, they don’t [allow] boats to cross under the bridge,” said a village from Tayettaw village, which sits on the river near the bridge. “Small boats can cross [under], but big boats can’t. They worry the bridge will fall on the [larger] boats.”
The Gyaing-Kawkareik Bridge was constructed in 1999 with a maximum weight limit of 45 tons. The project initially cost $4.96 million to complete; however the cost of recent repair efforts has yet to be disclosed.
