RUSSIAN authorities have confirmed that at least 34 people have died from adulterated alcohol in the southwestern province of Oremburg.
Local authorities, confirmed that another 24 people are hospitalized for the same reason.
Seven of the hospitalized people are in serious condition and four of them, admitted with a ventilator.
The region’s governor Denis Pasler has issued an urgent appeal to the local population to refrain from buying alcohol.
According to Pasler, there has been large-scale inspection of shops selling alcohol to remove unsafe drinks from circulation.
“Until the results are finalised, drinking alcohol can be life-threatening,’’ the governor warned.
Investigators had already arrested ten suspects, among them a 29-year-old man who is said to have organised illegal production in the city of Orsk, where police believe they have located the building where the deadly drinks were made.
The other two arrests were made in connection with the sale of the deadly alcohol.
According to the authorities, pure methanol which is poisonous if consumed was found in the bodies of the dead.
“In some cases, the concentration of the substance was found to be three to five times higher than the lethal dose.’’
“There are 67 known victims, 24 of whom have died,” the local government confirmed.
Police seized 2,000 bottles of alcoholon Saturday and said they had identified inside methanol, a component that is toxic.
It is not the first time that massive cases of alcohol poisoning have been detected in Russia.
In 2016, 77 people died in Siberia from drinking oil adulterated with methylated alcohol.
Russians have long had a reputation for being one of the world’s biggest alcohol drinkers, although consumption has declined in recent years, falling from 2003 to 2016, according to the World Health Organization.
