Toxic alcohol 'laced with methanol' kills at least 99 people in India.

Pedro_P

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Many victims in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand left writhing in pain after consuming liquor.

Two men who consumed bootleg alcohol sit on a hospital bed in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Photograph: Reuters
▼  At least 99 people have died and scores have been admitted to hospital in northern Indiaafter drinking toxic alcohol.
News of the deaths in the states of and Uttarakhand has trickled  out in over the past three days, with police suspecting the moonshine had been laced with methanol. Authorities said many victims had complained of dizziness and were taken to hospital writhing in pain.
Cheap, locally made liquor is common in parts of rural India and bootleggers often add methanol, a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as antifreeze, to their product to increase its strength. If ingested in large quantities methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
In one district of Uttar Pradesh, 59 people died after consuming toxic alcohol, a police spokesman, Shailendra Kumar Sharma, said. In a neighbouring district, a senior police officer said nine had died, adding that 66 suspected bootleggers had been arrested and samples of the liquor sent to a laboratory for testing.
At least 31 people died in neighbouring Uttarakhand state and two people were arrested on suspicion of supplying the liquor. “We are trying to find out the main source of this illicit liquor. We will soon [find] the main culprit behind this tragedy,” Janmejay Khanduri, a senior Uttarakhand police official, said.
About 3,000 people linked with the illicit trade have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh in connection with the incident, according to newspaper reports.
Hundreds of people die every year in India from consuming cheap alcohol. In 2015, more than 100 people died in a  Mumbai slumafter drinking moonshine.
Of the estimated 5bn litres of alcohol consumed every year in India, about 40% is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.

► This news was originally published here: Source

Srinivas1939

Tragedies such as these occur regularly in different parts of the country with no easy solution in sight.Building greater awareness of the dangers of drinking the adulterated stuff backed by strong law enforcement may provide respite from the menace.

Rhett_Bassard

When I lived in Chennai 15 yrs ago,  #arrack poisoning was hardly reported as it happened all the time...like train deaths.
The current carelessness pales in comparison to 170+ deaths in DEC 2011, West Bengal.

foraku

This will continue to happen till politicians think of people as vote bank n protect n nurture illegal activists to amass wealth

Rhett_Bassard

foraku 13-2-2019 11:56 AM
This will continue to happen till politicians think of people as vote bank n protect n nurture illeg ...

Wow, that's a complex outlook.
Is it easier than providing thermometers and education to the country brewers? A 25F distillation temp is the difference between dead and drunk.

foraku

If the brewers are so conscious about that then there will not be any hooch related deaths.It's just that no one wants to provide quality and demand the price for it but want to mint money overnight ignoring everything.

Rhett_Bassard

foraku 18-2-2019 01:16 PM
If the brewers are so conscious about that then there will not be any hooch related deaths.It's just ...

Why say that 'no one wants to provide quality' (ethanol) when there's no additional price or minting of money? Ingredients, equipment and process are the same for both alcohols. Simply educate the country brewers to use a thermometer and distill at the correct temp (174F). Alcohol distilled before or under that temp is likely poisonous methanol distilled at 148F.

Perhaps the problem is ignorance, not politicians and activists...unless one has a conspiracy theory that withholds knowledge and thermometers from country brewers.

Brewing is so damn easy, here's one of thousands of sources.