Eight hostel staff members have been detained after six tourists died in Laos. The tourist deaths were thought to have been caused by drinks that had been contaminated with methanol, a type of alcohol that the human body cannot process. Vangviang is a town popular with backpackers, usually young people who travel on a budget, and has a reputation for cheap alcohol and partying. According to humanitarian organisation Medsan San Frontière, that's Doctors Without Borders, Asia has the highest incidence of methanol poisoning, with cases in Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Methanol is sometimes added to home-made alcohol, but just 30 millilitres can be deadly. And here's a headline about this story. It's from Business Insider. Six tourists who died are believed to have drunk tainted alcohol in Laos.
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