Laos hostel guests tried to warn other travellers in deleted reviews before mass poisoning deaths

ABC NEWS (Australia)

New details are emerging about how backpackers tried to warn each other online about the hostel at the centre of the Laos methanol scandal. Two Australians are among the six dead.

Transcript

00:00Police in Laos are continuing to investigate these suspected methanol poisonings, but it's

00:07clear that travellers themselves are doing their own investigations.

00:12I've been sent a series of now-deleted Google reviews that show that in the days after people

00:17started falling violently ill, travellers were trying to warn each other about this

00:22unfolding situation and the hostel at the centre of this scandal.

00:27We now understand that all six of the people who died were staying at the Nana Backpackers

00:32hostel, and eight staff members have now been detained.

00:36But before the first death was even made public, travellers were taking to Google reviews to

00:42try to tell each other about what was going on.

00:44One traveller wrote,

00:46Don't go here.

00:47They have methanol in their drinks and me and three others have been hospitalised because

00:51of this.

00:52Another wrote,

00:53I stayed at this hostel for five days.

00:55Myself and friends were sick from consuming free vodka here.

01:00Some of the reviews were met with claims of slander from the hostel and were subsequently

01:06taken down.

01:07And we've now also learnt that the hostel continued to check people in even after three

01:13of its guests had died.

01:16One young traveller has told the ABC that they also continue to offer free drinks even

01:21on the day that police had been to the hostel and questioned staff.

01:27They had the free shots again and no one was touching any of the liquor on the second night.

01:32So I think at that point everyone sort of knew, okay, something's happening here.

01:38And it wasn't, we didn't party very hard on the second night because there was all these

01:41police around and we weren't sure, like, yeah, it was pretty quiet.

01:45Yeah.

01:46And it's obviously, it was just awful.

01:47Like, I just, hearing about it was not nice.

01:50And it sort of put a stain on what was, like, Laos is actually quite a nice place.

01:55And yeah, it just wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a great experience.

02:01As I mentioned, eight staff members from the hostel have now been detained.

02:05They have not yet been charged.

02:07And the owner of the hostel has vehemently denied that the poisoned drinks came from

02:12his bar.

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