{"id":426188,"date":"2024-11-27T05:11:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T05:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=426188"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Laos-hostel-staff-detained-after-backpackers-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Laos-hostel-staff-detained-after-backpackers-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Laos hostel staff detained after backpackers&#8217; deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police in Laos have detained the manager and seven staff of a backpacker hostel in Vang Vieng following the deaths of six tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, state media reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Two Danish citizens, an American, a Briton and two Australians died following what media said was a night out in the town on November 12.<\/p>\n<p>Police have detained the 34-year-old manager of the Nana Backpacker Hostel and seven other employees for interrogation, the Laos Post said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Local media reported that all those detained were Vietnamese nationals.<\/p>\n<p>Vang Vieng has been a fixture on the Southeast Asia backpacker trail since Laos&#8217; secretive communist rulers opened the country to tourism decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>The town was once synonymous with alcohol and drug-fuelled jungle parties for backpackers but has since re-branded as an eco-tourism destination.<\/p>\n<p>Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause of the deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Methanol is a toxic alcohol that can be added to liquor to increase its potency but can cause blindness, liver damage and death.<\/p>\n<p>On their travel advice websites, UK and Australian authorities have warned their citizens to beware of methanol poisoning while consuming alcohol in Laos.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday the Laos government expressed &#8220;sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to the families of the deceased&#8221;, adding an investigation was underway to find the cause of the incident.<\/p>\n<p>tak-rma\/ecl<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/915ae7ea0284aa02ed6577a9d6c322ef.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Vang Vieng in Laos was once synonymous with alcohol and drug-fuelled jungle parties for backpackers but has since re-branded as an eco-tourism destination<\/p>\n<p>-STR<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Police in Laos have detained the manager and seven staff of a backpacker hostel in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}