ISTANBUL: Nineteen people who drank tainted alcohol in Istanbul have died in the past 48 hours, with dozens more being treated for poisoning, the Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday (Jan 15).
The figure raised a toll given late Tuesday of 11 dead in 24 hours, Anadolu said.
A total of 65 people were affected, with 43 people still being treated in hospital and three others discharged.
Among them were 26 foreign nationals, the agency said without saying if any had died.
There was no immediate comment from the health ministry.
“The death toll is rising,” wrote Istanbul governor Davut Gul on X late Tuesday, saying the “licences of 63 business selling counterfeit alcohol were cancelled and they were closed”.
One of those was a business posing as a restaurant that was selling counterfeit alcohol in water bottles for 30 lira (US$0.85) each, the private NTV channel said.
In 2024, 110 people fell ill after drinking tainted alcohol in Istanbul, of whom 48 died, the governorate said.
Alcohol tainted with methanol is thought to be the cause, methanol being a toxic substance that can be added to liquor to increase its potency but which can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
Poisonings from adulterated alcohol are quite common in Türkiye, where private production has shot up as authorities crank up taxes on alcoholic drinks.
The most commonly faked product is raki, Türkiye’s aniseed-flavoured national liquor whose price has leapt to around 1,300 lira (US$37.20) a litre in supermarkets.
On Jan 1, Türkiye’s minimum wage rose to 22,104 lira (US$600).
Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been accused of trying to Islamise society in the officially secular state, has often criticised the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
