Eight staff members of a backpacker hostel in Laos have been detained by local authorities as they investigate the deaths of six foreign tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, according to state-affiliated media in the Southeast Asian country.

Amongst the tourists who tragically lost their lives were American traveller James Louis Hutson, 57, 28-year-old British woman Simone White and two Danish travellers Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21.

A Laos government document obtained by the ABC suggests the source of a methanol poisoning outbreak that killed six tourists is a rundown factory outside of Vientiane that was making vodka and whisky.

Staff from a backpacker hostel have been detained after six tourists died from suspected methanol poisoning after a night out.View on euronews

Police in Laos have detained eight members of staff at a backpacker hostel following the deaths of six tourists from suspected methanol poisoning last week. According to local media, those detained include workers and management from the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the town of Vang Vieng, where several of the tourists who later died had stayed.

As some of their number succumbed to methanol poisoning, other guests at the Laotian hostel at the centre of the probe tried to warn others to stay away - and the hostel reportedly deleted their warning.

Police in Laos have detained the manager and seven staff of a backpacker hostel in Vang Vieng following the deaths of six tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, state media reported