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Shown is a bottle of hawthorn bath essence that was confiscated during a Monday operation checking all private stores selling alcohol in Irkutsk, Russia. (Russian Interior Affairs ministry via EPA)

The death toll from alcohol poisoning in a Siberian city rose to at least 49 Monday after the victims consumed a counterfeit bath lotion containing deadly methanol.

Local officials in Irkutsk went house-to-house in search of more victims and introduced a state of emergency Monday, while the Russian government called for tighter regulation of the alcohol market.

The sale of lotions and tinctures containing alcohol has risen in recent years as Russia has plunged into recession under the impact of Western sanctions and a slide in oil prices. Poisonings caused by cheap surrogate alcohol are a regular occurrence, but the Irkutsk case was unprecedented in its scale.

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President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described the mass poisoning as a "terrible tragedy," adding that the president was being briefed about the situation.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a Cabinet meeting that authorities need to quickly ban such substances, saying their makers have been increasingly competing with legal alcohol producers.

"It's an outrage, and we need to put an end to this," he said in televised remarks.

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http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-r...219-story.html

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