Eight staff members of a backpacker hostel in Laos have been detained by local authorities as they investigate the deaths of six foreign tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, according to state-affiliated media in the Southeast Asian country.
The deaths of two Australian teenagers, a British woman, an American man and two Danish women – and reports of others taken ill – prompted warnings last week from several Western nations about the potentially fatal consequences of drinking tainted alcohol in Laos.
The employees of the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the northern town of Vang Vieng, all Vietnamese nationals aged between 23 and 44, were arrested Monday by local…