Bootleg booze toll in Indonesia climbs to 90

INDONESIA’S deadliest bootleg liquor crisis in years has killed at least 90 people, authorities said yesterday, prompting one region to declare a state of emergency.

Police are warning the toll could rise again as they conducted raids in cities across the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country to arrest vendors selling toxic homebrew.

Most Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam and alcohol is available in big cities, but high taxes make it expensive and poorly paid workers sometimes turn to cheap but potentially dangerous homemade alcohol. In 2016, 36 people died in Central Java after drinking locally bought homebrew.

Yesterday, authorities said at least 90 people have died over the past two weeks in Jakarta, West Java province and easternmost Papua, while dozens more are in critical condition in hospital from drinking tainted booze.

At least nine people had been arrested as of yesterday, but authorities are still looking for major distributors of the bootleg booze which is usually sold under the table by street vendors, who sometimes make the toxic concoction themselves.

One suspect admitted having mixed mosquito repellent, pure alcohol and cough medicine into his homemade brew, police said.

The string of deaths prompted Bandung, a major city east of Jakarta, and its surrounding area to declare a state of emergency yesterday.