Prague - Thieves managed to steal a four-ton iron railway bridge on an unused track in the western Czech Republic, local police said Monday. A witness told the police that the single-railed bridge near the western-Bohemian town of Cheb had "suddenly disappeared" between early December and mid January, Cheb police spokeswoman Martina Hruskova said.

"I can't recall anything similar of this magnitude," she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The police believe that the unknown perpetrators dismantled the iron bridge to sell it for scrap. The Czech Republic has been plagued by such thefts of metal in the form of wires, cables or manhole covers.