Sixth foreign tourist dies of suspected methanol poisoning in Laos | BBC News

Alcohol kills weeds don’t

Laos is a landlocked country and hasn’t changed for so many years including government/political. The appeal is the undiscovered territory and has been pretty much untouched for centuries. Lao people are beautiful respectable people the country has been affected so much because of the Vietnam war yet was left to tend to their own as other countries that were affected do to the Vietnam war were helped by the USA after bombing the crap out of the country for months, yet if you ask an American where Laos is at? They will not know ? But when you have poverty in any country around the world this what tends to happen, Any tourist should be very concerned about any alcohol in countries that are economically worlds behind. Read about how China has pretty much invaded and took control over Laos, as it’s doing in Africa. A lot of counterfeit coming in from China as well alcohol,gold, food etc.. also what maybe the norm for poverty stricken people can hurt others, I am truly sad my heart goes out to the families..

Just so people in another country know, laos is not a good place to visit. Laos is a communist country. They will try every possible ways to get your money. In this case, i strongly believed that the people at this bar tainted the tourist's drink in an attempt to make them fainted in tbier hotel so that the bar owner could ramsack all of their belongings, but for some reasons they died of overdosed.

It happened in Laos but the news statement blankets it as southeast asia. I don't think that is fair for Thailand and other countries in souteast asia.

if you were the owner of the hostel you would not poison your customers .you will go bankrupt no one will stay there . if its free its cheep Alcohol and its moonshine or homemade
locals can drink it and not get sick they are use to moonshine sadly we are not our bodies can not cope

The amount of victim blaming is infuriating. There needs to be a whole top bottom
Approach of Laos and it’d government leaving no stone unturned. It’s been a pattern

No arrests. Shows the true level of concern

This has been happening for years in n China and now those who thought they were consuming the genuine article are suffering from extreme health problems.

Sad. I challenged myself to go alcohol free for a year. It’s been so easy. My year ended this month and after hearing things like this my desire to start drinking again is lower than zero.

Thialand always help. I'm grad we can help. But for Real, Lao doesn't even have hospital for Lao citizen. Lao is a burden for Thailand

Now day you must take an extrem precaution to travel in Laos, Burma and Cambodia. These countries operated by an illegal cartel governments, all shady n illegal crabs are going down every day...

Lots of travel warnings out there about methanol poisoning.
"Laos officials aimed to re-centre the town as a spot for eco-tourism rather than just a hub for the young and drunk.
“And it worked,” they say. “It’s actually changed a quite a lot in the past decade, they’ve cleaned it up, it’s way more modern than it used to be."
But because of that: “I think it can be very easy for young travellers to miss that this is still a very poor country with lax regulations and safety standards.”
The diplomat said methanol poisoning - where alcoholic drinks are contaminated with the toxic compound - is well-known among consulates and tourism operators.
Consulates are fairly regularly having to deal with cases of tourists who have fallen ill from dodgy drinks, the diplomat noted.
South East Asia is documented as the worst region for methanol poisoning. Local producers making cheap alcohol often will not correctly reduce the toxic level of methanol produced in the process.
Thousands of incidents are recorded every year in the region, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF)."

I noticed the patients had to be flown to Thailand for care. If you travel to poor countries like Laos or Dominican Republic with sketchy healthcare systems, act accordingly. Tainted alcohol, motorcycle accidents and food poisoning can kill.

Laos is the biggest drinking culture in Asia. People don't realize it. Yes there is natural beauty there but relatively little to do. There is so much pressure to drink.

I'm very saddened by this!! I believe my son Alex knew Bianca Jones??,? Both the same age!!!

My condolences to the families involved. Something like this happening in Laos does not surprise me though with the lack of any rules on illegally made local moonshine. I hope they find the people responsible for this and they are prosecuted.

I went cycling through Laos years ago....got invited to a local wedding, and just about everything they were drinking was moonshine.... people drink thousands of litres of it every year. .seems odd that foreign tourists are the only ones affected?

Laos is not safe. Hospitals in Laos do not have enough equipment, so they have to rely on Thai hospitals for treatment instead.

Very sad news,lam from PNG

The victims drank counterfeit alcohol in Vang Vieng in Laos and some were sent for treatment in a Thai hospital.

Welcome to Laos rouge 🌚

It's "Lao." Just one country, singular. Lao PDR.

Laos is its own city with its own rules
Nothing will happen, just a slap on the wrist. Att: Travellers. Don't drink dodgy drinks in dodgy places
Teach your teenagers to be streetwise

In Laos Milions of Vietnamese and Chinese they love to live in Laos because they are the same communist country Retaurant, bars , hotels all own by them, drink and food not really safe

Stop drink, safe your healty/money future

This was happened in LAOS, not in Thailand. Just to be cleared.

Bamboo activated charcoal powder..fill my own 000 size capsules and have them with me.
That's my travel companion because it works to counter most toxins accidentally ingested.

Laos county very dangerous people would not good

This is insane, something should be done immediately. It may sound off topic but I chanced on this cool translator that does everything and more of what a translator should have, name is Immersive Translate and one thing that can really help is it’s new feature, which lets you create a custom AI expert for translating anything. Thank me later, it's gold.

Very upsetting News… hopefully any wrongdoers are apprehended asap so the families of the lost may have justice

In Laos, there is a lot of illegal liquor that does not meet international standards because the villagers brew and drink it themselves. Therefore, drinking illegal liquor can be dangerous and even fatal. You have to be careful because it is not up to international standards and has not been certified by the Lao Ministry of Health. The Lao government does not conduct any research or issue the highest penalty as same as another country, they would strictly prohibit production because it lacks standards. And another thing, if there is anything bad about this country, the Lao communist government will forbid all media in Laos from reporting the news. If anyone reports the news, that person will be arrested and killed, or imprisoned until they are forgotten. And ordinary Lao people are also prohibited from criticizing their own government or making positive comments about things. But Lao people can criticize people from other countries.

Laos cannot be trusted

Strong and independent women

This happened during Prohibition in America. It was kept quiet then too...... the greed of humanity never changes..... just the years change.😢

We already know there will be no arrest, no investigation because Laos is corrupted.

Visited Vang Vieng while travelling through Laos. What a kip! Stayed one night and left. Backpackers off their heads, puking in the streets, fighting etc. Then they cry when it all goes wrong?

Don't drink Alcohol.

Im thai people SEA country you can go to thai Singapore Malaysia indo re safety don't going outter i said because they have crime and low quality hospitals RIP for die young tourists..😢

South east asia is very dangerous place to go...most time their police are involved in criminal acts and forcing visitors to pay them for illegal arrest and thats similar to the shops, they sell things at high cost once they noticed you're not Asian..earlier this year my friend from America was arrested by some criminals that claimed to be police for smoking in bar,he àctually wasnt the only one that was smoking in the bar, even the bar tender told us ,we can smoke inside the bar but we shouldnt take it outside..none of them is eìther on police uniforms and they didnt present any ID, they only said they're police about 6/7 of them came with van and at the end they took 600$ from him ...and clearly there are many people smoking weed includìng me but they only target white guys, people they think are Americans or Australians or foreigners that are not Asians...very bad and corrupt people and they're always smiling with you but if you understand their language you'll know that they're very bad people.

Only go to 5 STAR HOTELS when traveling internationally. Especially in Asian countries. It's very cheap there compared to American hotels and will run you between $150-$200 a night. Worth it!

just avoid certain parts of the world...

I'm not surprised, those place are crap holes!

Why are you showing clips of Bangkok Hospitol in Thailand when this happened in Laos?

The local authority will stop serving all alcohol to tourist in future.

Sad incident, but not the first one. Vien Veng got famous since the end of 90' as a party town and for his in tube rafting. The town and his tourist stays for the big 3 D... Drunk, Drugs and Dumb...will those people ever learn and change after so numerous incidents since the 90' ...

This is why us "religious" folks do not end up like these low impulse hedonists.

Is it most young girls who drink this ?

The lure of free booze😢

When you go to Laos only drink from bottle and only buy street food that’s the only way to be safe. Vung vieng were known for drug and alcohol. Many tourists also drowning in that river. Thailand and Laos there’s no limit. As long as you want some they have it.