Alcohol Poisoning Kills 34, Leaves 80 Critical Hospitalized in India

Toxic alcohol kills at least 34 people and admits 80 more to hospitals in India

Toxic alcohol kills 34, hospitalizes 80 in India; Tamil Nadu CM announces compensation for victims' families and crackdown on illegal liquor trade, with arrests and suspensions of officials.

Chief Minister MK Stalin of Tamil Nadu has announced that families of the deceased will receive a payment of one million rupees ($12,000; £9,425), while hospitalized individuals will receive a payment of fifty thousand rupees each.

“Those involved in the crime have been arrested. Action has also been taken against the officials who failed to prevent it,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Thus far, a broader inquiry has resulted in the arrest of two persons.

Incompetence leads to suspension of 10 enforcement officials and a senior police officer responsible for curbing illegal liquor influx.

In India, drinking illicit alcohol from run-down distilleries results in the deaths of dozens of people every year.

Methanol, a poisonous and potentially fatal alcohol, is commonly added by bootleggers to their illegal concoctions to increase its intensity.

Methanol can be fatal or cause blindness if consumed in even small amounts. It also damages the liver.

“The deaths caused by illicit liquor in the past two years under the DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam] regime have decelerated Tamil Nadu by four decades, taking us back to the 1980s,” said K Annamalai, the state chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He insisted on the immediate resignation of the minister in charge of supervising the alcohol sales.

According to the victims' relatives, they promptly hospitalized their loved ones after they became ill, with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, and eye irritation, which they believe were caused by the tainted alcohol.