People walk on the Patriarch's bridge decorated for Christmas and New Year celebrations with the Christ the Savior Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia, Monday, December 16, 2019. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A masked reveller parades through the streets on the first day of the carnival season in Lucerne, Switzerland, 12 February 2015. In the background the well known Kappellbruecke bridge. (Photo by Alexandra Wey/EPA)

Students leave school via a bamboo bridge after the area was hit by floods in Gazipur, Bangladesh on September 12, 2021. (Photo by Harun-Or-Rashid/Eyepix Group/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

The trailer of an articulated lorry juts into the air after the vehicle came off a bridge on Interstate 81 southbound in Butler Township in Pennsylvania, US on November 9, 2021. (Photo by Sean McKeag/AP Photo)

Men rest on a boat in the overflowed Ganges River under the Shastri Bridge in Allahabad on August 17, 2022, as water levels of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers rose following monsoon rainfalls. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

Women hold a demonstration on Backwater Bridge during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 27, 2016. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters)

People watch a total solar eclipse from the Bay Bridge in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia March 9, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. The rare astronomical event is being witnessed Wednesday along a narrow path that stretches across 12 provinces encompassing three times zones and about 40 million people. (Photo by Mohamad Hamzah/Reuters/Antara Foto)