NEW DELHI: The death toll has climbed to 54 from consumption of tainted liquor in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, with more than 100 people still in hospital, a government official said on Saturday (Jun 22). Nearly 200 people have been treated since Wednesday for vomiting, stomach aches and diarrhoea
My understanding is that it is intentionally adulterated by illegal distillers in order to increase potency while keeping costs down in a competitive black market of alcohol sales to those who can not afford legal alchohol.
That is a lot of it, but there are cultural factors too. For traditional weddings in much of Asia you drink local palm/rice/whatever wine. Drinking is often competitive, you keep your empties in front of you on the table.
Pick a random country in Asia and search ‘methanol poisoning’ here’s Cambodia, the number of results is shocking. This has made international news because of the death toll, not because it’s an unusual occurrence.
https://search.privacyguides.net/search?q=cambodia+methanol+poisoning&category_general
Methanol can also form naturally during fermentation, given the right conditions (certain microorganisms) and ingredients (pectin): nih.gov
Just looking at the production process of methanol vs ethanol it’s way more likely that some asshole found some industrial methanol and stole it and used it to boost the potency of their product to boost their profit. Making enough methanol on a homebrew level to be dangerous is actually pretty tricky to do.
Or, the lazier method would be they just don’t throw away their first pours which are full of methanol and so 3 or 4 bottles from each batch are poison. This can easily happen with someone who just doesn’t know what they are doing trying to not waste product.
The simplicity of that explanation makes it feel more likely to me.