How many Asian forced labourers were used to build the Burma Railway?

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Map showing the height of Japanese territorial expansion in 1942 during World War II, with a large hatched area covering much of East and Southeast Asia and the western Pacific, including parts of China, Korea, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and numerous Pacific islands. Japan's home islands are shaded in solid red, while the expansion area stretches from India and Burma in the west to the Aleut — Burma Railway In World War II Japanese military forces quickly took advantage of their success at Pearl Harbor to expand their holdings throughout the Pacific and westward toward India. This expansion continued relatively unchecked until mid-1942. Then, after losing the Battle of Midway, Japan was forced on the defensive.

To construct the Burma Railway, the Japanese military forced approximately 200,000 Asian conscripts to work alongside more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war.1

The use of this massive pool of captive labour was intended to support Japanese forces in the Burma Campaign by creating an overland supply route after sea-lanes became insecure. These labourers, along with the Allied POWs, endured horrific conditions, including disease, malnutrition, and brutal treatment, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths during the construction of the line.1