{"id":76313,"date":"2026-02-10T09:20:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/10\/parents-of-melbourne-methanol-poisoning-victims-shocked-by-185-fines-handed-to-laos-hostel-staff"},"modified":"2026-02-10T09:20:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:20:33","slug":"parents-of-melbourne-methanol-poisoning-victims-shocked-by-185-fines-handed-to-laos-hostel-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76313","title":{"rendered":"Parents of Melbourne methanol-poisoning victims \u2018shocked\u2019 by $185 fines handed to Laos hostel staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fathers of Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, who died after a night out at the Nana Backpackers Hostel in 2024, say court decision is \u2018absolute injustice\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The families of two Melbourne teenagers who died after drinking methanol-laced alcohol in Laos say they have been blindsided by news the workers responsible for serving the drinks received fines of just $185.<\/p>\n<p>Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were killed by methanol poisoning along with four other tourists after a night out at the Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng, a popular tourist destination in Laos, in November 2024.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/10\/parents-of-melbourne-methanol-poisoning-victims-shocked-by-185-fines-handed-to-laos-hostel-staff\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fathers of Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, who died after a night out at the Nana Backpackers Hostel in 2024, say court decision is \u2018absolute injustice\u2019The families of two Melbourne teenagers who died after drinking methanol-laced alcoho&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[969,41,43,346,727],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-health","category-laos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76319,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76313\/revisions\/76319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}