• Forums Software Updates

    The forums will be undergoing updates on Sunday 13th October 2024.
    Little to no downtime is expected.
  • We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Sri Lankan Fishermen Dead After Drinking From Mysterious Bottles Found At Sea

Yithian

Yithian

Parish Watch
Staff member
Joined
Oct 29, 2002
Messages
36,946
Location
East of Suez

Four die after drinking from bottles found in sea​

9 hours ago
By Aleks Phillips, BBC News

Four Sri Lankan fishermen have died and another two are critically ill after consuming an unknown liquid from bottles they found while at sea, according to local media reports.

The sailors were said to be on a fishing trip when they retrieved the bottles around 320 nautical miles from Tangalle, a town on the southern coast of the island.

The Sri Lanka Navy told reporters the fishermen had drunk from the bottles thinking they contained alcohol.

Director General of the Sri Lankan Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Susantha Kahawatte, told several outlets that the navy was attempting to bring them back to shore.

He reportedly said that the the navy was providing medical attention to the men aboard the fishing vessel - named the Devon - over concerns there was not enough time to return them to land for treatment.

The BBC has approached Mr Kahawatta and the Sri Lanka Navy for confirmation and comment.

Mr Kahawatta told national news station Ada Derana that the fishermen had distributed some of the bottles to other crews operating in the area.

He added that attempts to notify these crews were being made.

The navy told local media that the Devon was being towed back to shore by another vessel. It set off from Tangalle on 4 June.

The incident has reportedly prompted protests in the coastal town - located around 120 miles (193km) from the capital, Colombo - calling for the sailors who were still alive to be returned to land.

Authorities are now investigating the contents of the bottles.

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgej1z0rwwo

I have too many questions and am hoping for updates, but no more details have appeared online.

My curiosity has been sparked!
 
A tiny bit more:

...the crew of a fishing vessel had consumed the contents of a bottle they found floating in the sea, assuming it was liquor...

Meanwhile, the two fishermen who are critically ill have been taken aboard a Singaporean merchant vessel and emergency treatment is being provided, the navy spokesman said.

The Singaporean vessel is expected to transfer the two fishermen to SLNS Vijayabahu at sea, he said.

The Director General of the Department of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources, Susantha Kahawatta, stated yesterday that the crew of the fishing boat named “Devon 5,” which had set out to sea from the Tangalle fisheries harbor, have faced this predicament after they had found several bottles containing an unknown liquid floating in the sea and consumed some of it assuming that it was alcohol.

He said medical teams had provided instructions for emergency first aid via communications devices and that there was insufficient time to send another vessel out to sea to retrieve them as they are in the deep-sea area.

He said that attempts were being made to board them into a nearby vessel and bring them ashore.

Kahawatta stated that according to the information received thus far, the fishermen in question had found several bottles floating in the sea and that they have distributed a portion of the bottles to nearby fishing trawlers. He said steps are being taken to notify these other boats.

Full Article:
https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=100190
 
If the bottles were floating, there couldn't have been much liquid in them. If several men were able to drink some, assuming it was alcohol, my guess would be some sort of badly distilled moonshine. Since authorities are investigating the bottle contents, hopefully we will find out. And more importantly, Sri Lankan fishermen will learn the lesson!
 
Min Bannister said:
If the bottles were floating, there couldn't have been much liquid in them. If several men were able to drink some, assuming it was alcohol, my guess would be some sort of badly distilled moonshine. Since authorities are investigating the bottle contents, hopefully we will find out. And more importantly, Sri Lankan fishermen will learn the lesson!
Click to expand...
I do hope that's all it is.
 
Min Bannister said:
If the bottles were floating, there couldn't have been much liquid in them. If several men were able to drink some, assuming it was alcohol, my guess would be some sort of badly distilled moonshine. Since authorities are investigating the bottle contents, hopefully we will find out. And more importantly, Sri Lankan fishermen will learn the lesson!
Click to expand...

I'm intrigued by the fact that several managed to drink and at least six are dead or critically ill. That suggests to me that they imbibed simultaneously or near simultaneously, and that the effect of the unknown liquid was slow enough that no warning sign from one discouraged the others from drinking.

I find myself woefully ignorant here. What is the fatal mechanism with badly distilled booze: the mere strength or impurities or something else?

I find it hard to believe that nobody would take an experimental sip before they all started quaffing flagons of the stuff, but I suppose we have no report yet of the quantities consumed.

Boats and booze put me in mind of the Mary Celeste, of course...
 
Very sad for the families, but surely the deceased are nominees for a Darwin Award.

A full bottle of water or liquor would normally sink. That implies a substantial air space in the bottles, which in turn implies the bottles had either leaked through the caps/corks or had been opened and resealed.

They would have no idea what was in the bottles, how old it was, or how pure it was. It was likely to be contaminated with sea water, algae, and all sorts of stuff. It could have been toxic before it was contaminated.

There is a thing called "ocean aged whisky" where the whisky is aged in barrels on board ships. The constant rolling motion of the ship sloshes the whisky about in the barrels, increasing the interaction between the whisky and the wood and bringing out the woody flavours. Also, there are differences in temperature compared to ageing in a cellar which causes some of the more volatile parts to evaporate, and some of the salinity in the sea air finds its way into the whisky adding to its flavour. However, that is not the same as storing bottles of whisky in the sea and some of it "escaping" and drifting away.
 
escargot said:
Drinking from a bottle you've found - nope. That's up with Never drink from a bottle or can you haven't SEEN opened and At least read the elfin' label first.
Click to expand...
At first I thought they must have been 'lost at sea' and desperate for any kind of liquid.

Then I just thought 'well, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it?' I mean...honestly. Besides, aren't the majority of Sri Lankans Buddhist and therefore tee-total?
 
Yithian said:
I find myself woefully ignorant here. What is the fatal mechanism with badly distilled booze: the mere strength or impurities or something else?

I find it hard to believe that nobody would take an experimental sip before they all started quaffing flagons of the stuff, but I suppose we have no report yet of the quantities consumed.
Click to expand...
Reading up a bit you can end up with impurities which are pretty bad for you but worse than that, moonshine can be adulterated with methanol to make the drink appear stronger. Methanol makes you very ill and possibly dead in fairly short order.

This is the list of symptoms from Wikipedia:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity

The initial symptoms of methanol intoxication include central nervous system depression, headache, dizziness, nausea, lack of coordination, and confusion. Sufficiently large doses cause unconsciousness and death. The initial symptoms of methanol exposure are usually less severe than the symptoms from the ingestion of a similar quantity of ethanol. Once the initial symptoms have passed, a second set of symptoms arises, from 10 to as many as 30 hours after the initial exposure, that may include blurring, photophobia, snowstorm vision or complete loss of vision, acidosis, and putaminal hemorrhages, an uncommon but serious complication. These symptoms result from the accumulation of toxic levels of formate in the blood, and may progress to death by respiratory failure Physical examination may show tachypnea and eye examination may show dilated pupils with hyperemia of the optic disc and retinal edema.
Click to expand...
catseye said:
At first I thought they must have been 'lost at sea' and desperate for any kind of liquid.

Then I just thought 'well, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it?' I mean...honestly. Besides, aren't the majority of Sri Lankans Buddhist and therefore tee-total?
Click to expand...
Are they now?
kesavaross said:
'Bottles', plural, all floating in the sea together? Yeah, sure they were.
Click to expand...
Well this brings us back to moonshine IMHO.
 
The more I think about this, the more questions I have...

How were the bottles floating if they had liquid in them?
How did the fishermen communicate what they had done? Were there some on board who didn't drink anything who could tell rescuers what happened?
Why did they 'distribute the bottles' to others without knowing what was in them? Had they already drunk some of the liquid and therefore knew it was alcohol? In which case..
How long did the liquid take to have any effect?
 
Min Bannister said:
Reading up a bit you can end up with impurities which are pretty bad for you but worse than that, moonshine can be adulterated with methanol to make the drink appear stronger. Methanol makes you very ill and possibly dead in fairly short order...
Click to expand...

Yes. I think it takes a while to die, but I wonder if the fact that this happened out at sea meant that exposure to the elements - and factors like heat and accelerated dehydration - may have helped things along somewhat.
 
catseye said:
How long did the liquid take to have any effect?
Click to expand...
I forgot to explain this bit a little further:-
The initial symptoms of methanol exposure are usually less severe than the symptoms from the ingestion of a similar quantity of ethanol. Once the initial symptoms have passed, a second set of symptoms arises, from 10 to as many as 30 hours after the initial exposure,
Click to expand...
For the non-chemically minded, ethanol is the alcohol that we know and (probably) drink. The men may have been drinking away thinking everything was fine until it wasn't. You don't need a gigantic amount. 30ml can be enough and 100ml would do it.
 
Yithian said:
Is this not consistent with the physics?

You often see clusters of rubbish or jetsam all headed in the same direction.
Click to expand...
Flotsam and jetsam tend to be completely on the surface of the water and in stream/rivers collect in eddies and currents. The bottles would be partially submerged so would be affected differently by tide and wind.

Well that's my theory but... you may have a point.
 
Min Bannister said:
I forgot to explain this bit a little further:-

For the non-chemically minded, ethanol is the alcohol that we know and (probably) drink. The men may have been drinking away thinking everything was fine until it wasn't. You don't need a gigantic amount. 30ml can be enough and 100ml would do it.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking that there may have been a LOT of methanol in the bottles, giving the liquid a lower density and possibly some of it evaporating into a gas, This might explain why the bottles were floating.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I'm thinking that there may have been a LOT of methanol in the bottles, giving the liquid a lower density and possibly some of it evaporating into a gas, This might explain why the bottles were floating.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't that be noticeable on opening though? Bottles that 'pop' when taking the lid off would be among my list of 'things to avoid'.
 
catseye said:
Wouldn't that be noticeable on opening though? Bottles that 'pop' when taking the lid off would be among my list of 'things to avoid'.
Click to expand...
Their reaction might have been 'nice hiss', followed by the strong odour of alcohol. Which might explain why they just necked it without checking.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I'm thinking that there may have been a LOT of methanol in the bottles, giving the liquid a lower density and possibly some of it evaporating into a gas, This might explain why the bottles were floating.
Click to expand...
If a liquid becomes a gas but the gas remains in the same airtight container of fixed dimensions (not stretchy like a balloon) the mass remains the same, and the volume remain the same, and therefore the buoyancy is unaffected.

If you mean that the (putative) methanol evaporated and some of it escaped, then of course the mass would be slightly reduced, the volume of the "package" (bottle and contents) would remain the same, and it would be slightly more buoyant.
 
I have been reading each of the posts very carefully. Before evaluating the characteristics of the contents of these bottles, we should know the symptoms or details of the death of the fishermen. At least know the details, so to speak, in common and non-scientific terms. If they fell asleep, became dizzy or fainted or had some type of seizure. I am not talking about a medical report but rather about what the rest of the crew could testify.
The methanol hypothesis may be interesting but let us remember that it evaporates at 65 degrees Celsius, it is very volatile and assuming a very high alcoholic degree value of the liquid it should be almost all methanol to produce death so quickly.
One possibility to evaluate is cocaine dissolved in whisky or liquor, which is used as one of the strangest means of drug trafficking.
Cocaine hydrochloride is completely soluble in hydroalcoholic solutions and its evaporation point is almost 98 degrees Celsius, so if we heat a bottle containing a product that evaporates BEFORE the cocaine, we will obtain powder as a result. There are more sophisticated extraction techniques but this is the simplest.​
 
Fabio Picasso said:
I have been reading each of the posts very carefully. Before evaluating the characteristics of the contents of these bottles, we should know the symptoms or details of the death of the fishermen. At least know the details, so to speak, in common and non-scientific terms. If they fell asleep, became dizzy or fainted or had some type of seizure. I am not talking about a medical report but rather about what the rest of the crew could testify.
The methanol hypothesis may be interesting but let us remember that it evaporates at 65 degrees Celsius, it is very volatile and assuming a very high alcoholic degree value of the liquid it should be almost all methanol to produce death so quickly.
One possibility to evaluate is cocaine dissolved in whisky or liquor, which is used as one of the strangest means of drug trafficking.
Cocaine hydrochloride is completely soluble in hydroalcoholic solutions and its evaporation point is almost 98 degrees Celsius, so if we heat a bottle containing a product that evaporates BEFORE the cocaine, we will obtain powder as a result. There are more sophisticated extraction techniques but this is the simplest.​
Click to expand...
Or it could have been weedkiller for all we know. We're assuming it was alcohol, but it might have been DDT decanted into old whisky bottles or something, with the fishermen assuming it was alcohol just because of the bottles.
 
Mikefule said:
If you mean that the (putative) methanol evaporated and some of it escaped, then of course the mass would be slightly reduced, the volume of the "package" (bottle and contents) would remain the same, and it would be slightly more buoyant.
Click to expand...
Yes... this was kinda what I was thinking. Methanol is fairly volatile, and I'm guessing that the seals are not 100%.
 
Fabio Picasso said:
I have been reading each of the posts very carefully. Before evaluating the characteristics of the contents of these bottles, we should know the symptoms or details of the death of the fishermen. At least know the details, so to speak, in common and non-scientific terms. If they fell asleep, became dizzy or fainted or had some type of seizure. I am not talking about a medical report but rather about what the rest of the crew could testify.​
Click to expand...

Alas, we're fast running out of witnesses and it hasn't yet been reported whether the last crewman is even conscious.
 
There is some suggestion that this is an image of the surviving fishermen. The Singaporean vessel bringing him ashore has (had?) apparently experienced 'technical' (mechanical?) troubles and his return is (was?) delayed.

Navy media spokesman Captain Gayan Wickramasuriya says that his condition is 'not serious'.

All local comment I have read (in translation) is very unsympathetic: gluttony, stupidity and addiction are variously being blamed.

GRVVgWlbMAAdYsN.jpeg
 
Yithian said:
There is some suggestion that this is an image of the surviving fishermen. The Singaporean vessel bringing him ashore has (had?) apparently experienced 'technical' (mechanical?) troubles and his return is (was?) delayed.

Navy media spokesman Captain Gayan Wickramasuriya says that his condition is 'not serious'.

View attachment 79018
Click to expand...
That looks serious, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top