Police in Laos have detained eight members of staff at a backpacker hostel following the deaths of six tourists from suspected methanol poisoning last week.
According to local media, those detained include workers and management from the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the town of Vang Vieng, where several of the tourists who later died had stayed.
It is unclear how many other people were taken ill and an investigation into the deaths is continuing.
The owners of the hostel, which is now closed, have previously denied serving illicit alcohol.
It is not the first time that police have detained staff from the hostel. The manager was among a number of people who were questioned by police last week.
He earlier told the Associated Press news agency that 19-year-old Australians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles were the only people staying at the hostel to have become unwell after drinking free shots before heading out for the night.
The pair died days later – after being admitted to hospital in neighbouring Thailand. Theirs were the first deaths suspected to be caused by methanol – a toxic, flavourless and colourless substance commonly added to bootleg alcohol.
Two Danish women and a 57-year-old American man, who were also staying at the Nana Backpacker Hostel, died at around the same time.
The two young Danes – Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21 – were found unconscious in their hostel bedroom on 13 November.
That was the same day that the Australian women were taken to hospital after going out to a bar in the city the night before, local media reported.
They were sent to a hospital in the capital Vientiane, but died in the middle of the night. The medical team said the cause of death was sudden heart failure.
Also on 13 November, hostel staff noticed that the American tourist – named as James Louis Hutson – had not come out of his room. —BBC
