Eight arrested over Laos methanol poisonings which killed six tourists

Police in Laos have arrested eight people over the suspected mass methanol poisoning which killed six foreign tourists in backpacking hotspot Vang Vieng.

The Laos government promised justice after two Danish, two Australians, a Briton and an American citizen died after becoming ill following a night out at Nana Backpackers Hostel in the small riverside town on 12 November.

Police said those detained were all employees of Nana Backpacker Hostel, of Vietnamese nationality and aged between 23 and 44 years old.

Authorities say they suspect that the deaths were caused by poisoning, possibly due to tainted drinks laced with methanol.

The Vang Vieng district authorities launched investigation which is working alongside various ministries and organisations, said it is continuing to investigate the deaths and collect relevant data to determine the exact cause of deaths.

The government said it had been conducting “investigations to find causes of the incident and to bring the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the law”.

However, little further information has been made available about the circumstances surrounding the deaths in the one-party communist state, where the media is tightly controlled.

Among those who died were Australian teenagers, Holly Bowles, 19, and Bianca Jones, 19.

Bowles, who had been in critical condition on life support after drinking the tainted alcohol in Laos, died in a hospital in Bangkok, her family confirmed last week.

Jones and Bowles were evacuated for an emergency treatment to Thailand after the poisoning. Thai authorities confirmed that Jones had died by “brain swelling due to high levels of methanol found in her system”.

Simone White, a 28-year-old British woman, also died from suspected methanol poisoning during her stay in the district with her friend Bethany Clarke. Ms Clarke said they “drank free shots offered by one of the bars” and added that “six of us who drank from the same place are in hospital currently with methanol poisoning”.

Two young Danish women Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, as well as the only male, a 57-year-old American, James Louis Hutson, also died.

At least 12 other foreign tourists were hospitalised after consuming the tainted drinks from the same guesthouse.

The deaths prompted governments in the US and UK to issue travel warnings to its citizens visiting the country in recent days. The UK urged its nationals travelling to Laos to only consume alcohol from licensed liquor stores and “take care if [drinks are] offered, particularly for free, or when buying spirit-based drinks”.

The idyllic town of Vang Vieng in central Laos which is surrounded by limestone mountains, at the centre of an international scandal after becoming a famous destination for young western backpackers for what is called “tubing”, where tourists ride a large, inflated rubber tyre tubes down the Nam Song River, taking halts at bars along the way.

It has earned the reputation as a destination on the Southeast Asian “Banana Pancake Trail” for its cheap bars and wild parties.

Methanol, a tasteless and odourless liquid, is sometimes added to liquor as a cheaper alternative to ethanol and has been blamed for mass deaths in Asia.

In 2012, around 50 people were killed in Cambodia after party-goers drank rice wine contaminated by methanol.

Between 2018 to 2019, at least 40 people have died in Philippines after drinking palm liquor- laced with methanol.