Beneath this obelisk is a vault that contains the remains of over 10,000 Asian Forced Laborers. It is generally believed that between 250,000 and 500,000 laborers of many nationalities were sent to Thailand to build the Thai-Burma Railway.
At least 40% died. But those buried in this grave are those who survived their time on the Railway. They died near here in 1944-47; abandoned after the war. This obelisk was placed in 1957 by the members of Wat Tha Worn Wararam community. But even just a decade after the war’s end, no one was sure who these bones belonged to. Hence, it has the name
Chedi Niranam or grave of the anonymous. It is now known that many of the laborers who worked the Thai-Burma Railway and those who are buried here were Tamil-Indians.