Roads in Myanmar / Burma

[Chris]

The Ava Bridge collapsed during today's magnitude 7.7 earthquake near Mandalay.

This bridge was originally built during the British colonial period, between 1927 and 1934. It was originally a rail bridge, with a road addition later. It was the only bridge across the Irrawaddy River until the 1990s. The river basin is Myanmar's heartland.

The 2008 Irrawaddy Bridge (the large arch bridge) seems to have survived the earthquake intact.








The Yangon - Mandalay Expressway also received damage due to surface ruptures. The expressway opened to traffic in stages from 2009 to 2011. It's a substandard expressway, even by regional standards. Over 100 fatalities are reported on this expressway every year, though poor vehicle maintenance is also often blamed (in combination with higher driving speeds).











The capital Naypyidaw also received substantial damage due to surface ruptures. The air traffic control tower at the airport also collapsed.

Naypyidaw is known for having hugely oversized roads and roundabouts.

[JayhawkCO]

Super scary. I have been over that bridge and on the Yangon-Mandalay highway. Not the country that can afford to have a natural disaster like that either.

[LilianaUwU]

Wow, different culture, huh. I-80 is closed in NJ over arguably much less, but in Myanmar, life goes on.

[Chris]

A four lane bridge south of Mandalay collapsed as well. This is the bridge of the Yangon - Mandalay Highway across the Myitnge River.

This bridge was built in 2011 as a non-access-controlled section of the Yangon - Mandalay Expressway, between the airport and Mandalay. This would complicate getting supplies into Mandalay.

[Chris]

There is a large-scale war raging in Myanmar. The militairy junta has lost approximately 60% of the land area, including all land borders. The military routinely burns down entire towns.

This is a complex conflict with numerous ethnic armies fighting the military. They gained momentum since 2023. The government still controls almost all major cities, but has lost much of the countryside, especially in the east, north and west.

A major side effect of this war is the surge of cyberscamming centers in Myanmar, especially in the east. They used to target mostly the Chinese market, using forced labor, but it has been expanding with sweetheart scams targeting western nations.

This scamming rakes in billions of dollars and they are able to fund large-scale expansion of remote cities that have no economy other than smuggling and scamming.

Here's Mongla or Mong La, near the Chinese border. Urban development exploded.


The remote village of Mong Pauk, which had no paved roads until recently:


Laukkai: