Nearly 60 people dead from alcohol poisoning after drinking bath oil in Russia’s Irkutsk city
Authorities have declared a state of emergency in Russian Irkutsk city after at least 60 people died of alcohol poisoning after drinking a bath oil
An additional 15 people were in critical condition in hospitals in Irkutsk. Mayor Dmitry Berdnikov called for the state of emergency after meeting with local authorities, the Interfax news agency reported. Interfax, citing prosecutor Alexander Semyonov, said the death toll had risen to at least 60.
The bath oil bottles were labeled as containing ethyl alcohol, the state-run news agency Tass reported, and were clearly marked with warnings that they were not meant to be consumed internally. The products, in fact, contained methyl alcohol and antifreeze, said Alexei Krupin, the head of the alcohol regulating agency for Siberia.
Russia’s top investigative agency has opened a criminal investigation of the deaths and the sale of goods not meeting safety requirements. Investigators said in a statement that they had detained 11 people suspected of distributing the bath oil and had confiscated more than 2,000 liters of spirits, the Reuters news agency reported.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a government meeting that he hopes to consider banning products that lead to such high death tolls and that the country’s criminal code is being amended to toughen the punishment for people caught selling them, Reuters reported.