2016 Irkutsk mass methanol poisoning

At a glance

Dates: From 2016.

What came before

Background See also: Alcohol in Russia In the 2010s, the economy of Russia suffered from a financial crisis , depressed oil prices , and international sanctions put into place during the Ukrainian crisis . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In Irkutsk Oblast , citizens' buying power fell between 2013 and 2017. Russians did see an increase in average salary per capita during that period, but rising prices on a number of important items—such as food, consumer goods,

What happened

Incident The bath oil involved in the December 2016 mass poisoning was made with methanol instead of the usual ethanol. It was placed into bottles that had the bath oil's typical ethanol-bearing labels. [ 1 ] The methanol was acquired from an employee of a local windshield washer fluid firm, who stole and sold the substance without the knowledge of the company's head. [ 2 ] [ A ]

Aftermath Irkutsk's mayor Dmitry Berdnikov declared a state of emergency on 19 December. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] By the next day, the Russian government said that it had seized about 2,000 liters (530 U.S. gal) of illegal alcohol, uncovered a bath oil production facility, and removed 500 liters (130 U.S. gal) of remaining bath oil from the shelves of around 100 retailers in the Irkutsk area. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] On the 23rd,

In December 2016, over 70 people died of methanol poisoning in the Russian city of Irkutsk. Caused by the consumption of adulterated surrogate alcohol, it was the deadliest such incident in Russia's post-Soviet history.