Six people are dead after a suspected mass methanol poisoning in a backpacker party town. What went wrong in Laos?
Vang Vieng is an unlikely party center.
Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it transformed from a small farming village into a hedonistic party center in the early 2000s. Lured by drunken tubing experiences, crowds of twenty-something backpackers secured their place on Southeast Asia’s famed backpacker trail.
A journey through the region’s tapestry is something of a rite of passage for some young travelers.
But the deaths of five young travelers after suspected mass methanol poisoning emerged from the city and made international headlines.
While a spate of backpacker deaths in 2012 led to a crackdown on bars and a temporary ban on tubing, Vang Vieng, a 90-minute drive from the capital Vientiane, has remained popular among tourists.
On Friday, 19-year-old Australian Holly Bowles became the sixth person to die from suspected consumption of drinks containing methanol. News of her death came just hours after that of British lawyer Simone White, 28. Bowles’ best friend, Bianca Jones, 19, died Thursday in hospital in Udon Thani, Thailand, near the northern border with Laos. Thai authorities confirmed that the Melbourne teenager died as a result of methanol poisoning.
Three other tourists – two Danish citizens, 19 and 20, and an American – died in Laos after the poisoning. About eleven foreign citizens are still in hospital.
Authorities in Laos arrested the manager and owner of the Nana backpacker hostel in Vang Vieng on Friday, but no charges have been filed.
Families around the world are now desperate for answers. How can something like this happen?
‘I started to feel strange‘
Almost a year ago, Claire*, a British traveler in her thirties, gazed into the Laos sky with vodka and coke in hand. Her “tipsy tubing” trip last December had started as planned.
But after the first stop at a makeshift riverside bar in Vang Vieng, the trip went wrong.
“I started to feel strange, suddenly I was very weak and tired, and I was slipping in and out of consciousness,” says Claire.
Her friends witnessed her eyes rolling back, and Claire recalls them later describing it as “terrifying.”
“I was mostly aware of everything, but couldn’t see anything. I knew I was being carried, but couldn’t physically do anything,” she says.
“I remember trying to explain that something was wrong – that I wasn’t just drunk.”
The incident left her in the hospital for days. She still doesn’t know how it happened.
“It could have been a spike, it could have been severe alcohol poisoning,” says Claire.
“In Laos we had been warned about drinking liquor as there were rumors that it was bad alcohol, but the drinks we drank up to the first river stop (in an informal bar) had been bought from a supermarket in Vang Vieng , and the only drink I bought was in a bottle.”
Claire stayed at the Nana Backpacker Hostel – where Jones and Bowles had stayed before falling seriously ill after a night out at Vang Vieng’s party venues.
The pair, aged 19 and from Melbourne, were on a “dream getaway”, Jones’ family said.
A selfie of Jones, posted to Facebook this month, shows her lounging in a tube by a river.
According to a hostel employee who spoke to the media, Jones and Bowles went to a number of bars in Vang Vieng on the night of November 11.
The hostel’s manager, Duong Duc Toan, has said he served Jones and Bowles free shots of local vodka before they left, but vehemently denies this made them sick.
What should have been a carefree night out left them in bed for 24 hours. After the pair failed to check out as planned on November 13, they sought help from hostel staff, who transported them to hospital.
In another hospital bed lay Simone White.
White, a lawyer who had worked at global law firm Squire Patton Bogg, was from Orpington, south-east London, and was among as many as six British nationals who required treatment after the Vang Vieng incident.
Her death in Laos was confirmed just hours after that of Jones, who was transported to neighboring Thailand last week after falling ill.
Before her death, Jones’ family said they hoped Lao authorities would “get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible.”
On Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament that Jones’ death was “every parent’s worst fear”, while her family said she died “surrounded by love” in a statement to Melbourne newspaper Herald Sun.
Nick Heath, the president of the Beaumaris Football Club where Jones and Bowles played Australian rules football, describes them as “part of the Covid generation”.
“They had completed their education and were both working hard in their part-time jobs to get some money for their dream trip abroad,” he told the ABC on Friday.
“They left full of zest for life and a search for adventure.”
On Thursday, Thai authorities said Jones died of “swelling of the brain due to high levels of methanol in her system.”
Bowles died Friday surrounded by family in a Thai hospital.
“We are heartbroken and so sad to say that our beautiful girl Holly is now at peace,” her family said in a statement.
The Nana hostel declined to comment to the Guardian, saying they were working with police to identify where the toxic alcohol had been consumed.
Just 30 ml can be fatal
When the Danish and US governments announced the deaths of their citizens this week, they made no link to methanol – although New Zealand’s foreign ministry said one of the citizens who fell ill could have been a victim of methanol poisoning.
But as Laos authorities continue to investigate the cases, experts say clinical symptoms point to methanol poisoning.
“When people drink in large numbers and get sick and the symptoms start after a certain time, that is methanol until proven otherwise,” says Norwegian professor Knut Erik Hovda, who works with Doctors Without Borders (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders). Borders) on this issue.
Samples have been sent to Thailand and verified, Hovda said.
In Southeast Asia, brewing illegal liquor using ingredients such as rice and sugar cane is a cultural norm. Sometimes these are mixed with methanol as a cheaper alternative to ethanol.
Although ethanol, the main component of alcoholic beverages, can be safely consumed in small amounts, methanol is toxic to humans.
Just one bite – 30 ml – can be fatal.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday that binge drinking and methanol poisoning are “far too common” in many parts of the world.
“I would like to say to parents and young people: please discuss the risks and inform yourself. Please let us work together to ensure this tragedy does not happen again,” she said.
Asia has the highest prevalence of methanol poisoning globally, with incidents in Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines, according to data from Doctors Without Borders.
Left untreated, methanol poisoning has a mortality rate of between 20% and 40%, but if properly diagnosed and treated promptly, the survival rate is high, according to Doctors Without Borders.
“Once you recognize its clinical signs and symptoms and provide appropriate treatment, you will no longer experience morbidities and complications,” said Dr. Chenery Ann Lim, who oversees MSF’s methanol poisoning project.
There are two antidotes for methanol poisoning: one is ethanol, which is readily available, and the other is fomepizole.
It’s impossible to tell whether your drink is made with poisoned alcohol, which means travelers, especially in Southeast Asia, need to be careful about what they consume, says Dr. Dicky Budiman, a public health expert from Australia’s Griffith University.
“The clear message for young travelers is that if they are offered illicit or illicit alcohol or local drinks, it is best to avoid it,” he said.
But Hovda says the figures from Laos are just the “tip of the iceberg”, with tourism horror stories representing just a fraction of cases.
In 2018 for example more than 80 people died from drinking illegal liquor in Indonesia, while more than 100 others were hospitalized.
“Very often this affects the poorest people who no one cares about,” says Hovda.
According to Chenery, “The majority of cases that we see are actually the head of the household, the men, the breadwinners.”
*Name has been changed