Owner of backpacker hostel detained by police for questioning in Laos

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The owner of backpacker hostel in Laos has been detained after a mass methanol poisoning incident killed five people. A 28-year-old British woman is the latest victim and follows the death of Melbourne teenager Bianca Jones.

Transcript

00:00We now know that the latest victim of this mass methanol poisoning incident is a 28-year-old

00:07British lawyer, Simone White.

00:09She'd been traveling in Laos, in Vang Vieng, with a group of friends, six of whom ended

00:15up in hospital after drinking at the same place, and one of her friends has detailed

00:19the ordeal on social media, saying that her own liver had started to shut down and she

00:24had very intense treatment in hospital for days and days, but finally made a recovery

00:29and sadly her friend didn't.

00:31Now of course this news comes after the devastating news that Australian teenager Bianca Jones

00:37has died up in northern Thailand in Udon Thani, her parents making the devastating decision

00:42yesterday to turn off her life support.

00:46Her death came after two young Danish women and a young American man died as well, but

00:52this has had much wider reaching impacts.

00:55We understand about 14 people have fallen gravely ill as a result of this mass methanol

01:00poisoning incident from all over the world, from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US,

01:06the Netherlands, Denmark.

01:08There's been no improvement in the condition of 19-year-old Holly Bowles, she's still on

01:13life support in hospital here in Bangkok.

01:16Her family of course are by her bedside, many of them have come to be with her during this

01:22ordeal and many people back in Melbourne are wishing and hoping against hope that she

01:27wakes up, but it has to be said that nine days after she was flown to Thailand from

01:33Laos in a coma, that hope is fading by the day.

01:38And that is likely to put a lot of pressure on Laos police to really get to the bottom

01:44of this and find out how this tragedy has happened.

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