Fake alcohol poisoned several dozen people in Guangzhou City recently. In late May, eight people were known to have died and at least 18 people received treatments in the hospitals. Those seriously poisoned are in critical condition right now.

Guangzhou Information Times, News Express, and the Aviso of Baiyun District reported that the first two cases of death happened the evening of May 11. Mr. Deng, a migrant worker from Hengyang City in Hunan Province, died after hospital treatment failed. Another patient at The Red Cross Hospital in the Baiyun District also died. On the night of May 12, News from Taihe Town reported three people were suspected of drinking fake alcohol. They died after the hospital treatment failed. On the thirteenth, two people from Zhuliao Town and one person from Zhongluotan Town were suspected to have died from drinking the fake alcohol in their homes.

Sources from inside China state that at present, a total of 17 people were sent to the 12th People’s Hospital of Guangzhou City. Four of them were sent to ICU intensive care rooms and one of them is in a coma. CT examinations show the cerebra and optic nerves of those poisoned people have been injured to different extents. The concentration of methanol in the blood of some of those patients is almost 20 times higher than a normal person. Huaqiao Hospital treated a patient from Hunan Province, whose methanol content in the blood was ten times higher than the average. His eyesight was seriously injured.

The government office in Guangdong Province, responsible for investigating the incident, reports that the origin of the fake alcohol has been found. Twelve people were arrested and another two escaped. Guangzhou City Quality and Technique Inspection Bureau captured 16.6 tons of fake alcohol and 5.5 tons of half-complete alcohol. It is known that most of the people who were poisoned by the fake alcohol came from Hunan and Jiangxi Province. Their ages are between 30 and 60 and they mainly live in Zhongluotan Town, Baiyun District.