The Laos government has said it is “profoundly saddened” by the deaths of six foreign tourists in Vang Vieng, where a methanol poisoning incident is the suspected cause.
A statement posted on its ministry of foreign affairs website said it expressed “sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to the families of the deceased”, adding an investigation was under way into the cause of the deaths.
Six people died of suspected methanol poisoning after a night out in the backpacker hotspot last week. A British woman, two Australian teenagers, an American man and two Danish tourists died after falling ill shortly after 12 November.
Holly Bowles, 19, died on Friday in a Bangkok hospital, one day after her best friend, Bianca Jones, also 19, died in another Thai hospital. Both were from Melbourne.
Bowles’s death was confirmed on Friday, along with that of the British lawyer Simone White, whose parents said they were “devastated by the loss of our beautiful, kind and loving daughter”.
Australian officials are pressing the Laotian authorities for a full and transparent investigation into what happened.
Vang Vieng has been a fixture on the south-east Asia backpacking trail since Laos’s secretive communist rulers opened the country to tourism decades ago.
The town was once synonymous with backpackers behaving badly at jungle parties but has since been rebranded as an eco-tourism destination.
The Vietnamese manager of the Nana backpacker hostel has been detained for questioning, the Laos tourist police told Agence-France Presse. No charges have been made.
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Police in Laos could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause of the deaths. Methanol is a toxic alcohol that can be added to liquor to increase its potency but can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
On their travel advice websites, UK and Australian authorities have warned their citizens to beware of methanol poisoning while consuming alcohol in Laos.
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