El Salvador: Poisoned Liquor Kills 41

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Nando Times

Poisoned liquor kills 41 in El Salvador

The Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (October 8, 2000 8:20 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Forty-one people have died in San Salvador after consuming sugarcane liquor contaminated with methyl alcohol, health officials said Sunday.

The deaths have occurred over the past week. The latest five were reported Sunday.

Police said the deadly alcohol was sold to poor farmworkers beginning last week at liquor stores in San Vicente, 35 miles east of the capital, under the brand name Thunderbolt, a well-known sugarcane liquor. Police suspect black-marketers are filling discarded bottles with methyl alcohol, which is used as antifreeze.

Police have closed more than 50 stores where the alcohol was sold in and around San Vicente.

In the most recent deaths, doctors said a 42-year-old woman and three men died Saturday Zacatecoluca, about 30 miles southeast of San Salvador, and a 45-year-old man died in San Vicente.

Methyl alcohol poisoning causes headaches, vomiting, stomachaches, blindness and often death.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), October 09, 2000

Answers

CBC

Wed Oct 11, 6:39 am

Bad booze deaths prompt suspension of liquor sales

The Salvadoran government is banning the sale of liquor for 10 days after 100 died from drinking methyl alcohol.

Police in El Salvador suspect black marketeers have been refilling discarded liquor bottles with a mixture of methanol.

Traces of the industrial poisonous chemical, which is used as an antifreeze and as a gasoline additive, have been found in some victims' bodies.

People started dying last Tuesday in an epidemic that has spread over half the country's 12 provinces, including the capital, San Salvador.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), October 11, 2000.


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