A Canadian coroner says she cannot confirm it without a doubt, but the deaths of two sisters in Thailand in 2012 were probably caused by phosphine gas poisoning.
Phosphine is highly toxic pesticide that may have been used in their hotel to kill bed bugs.
Thai investigators had said Canadian tourists Audrey and Noémi Bélanger died of DEET poisoning, but Coroner Renee Roussy’s office redid the work of medical examiners and said concentrations of DEET in their bodies were not high enough to kill them.
Thai officials told investigative reporters from the public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada that hotels are not allowed to use phosphine. It is rather used in large spaces like grain silos or ship cargo holds. However, the reporters visited one Thai company willing to sell the chemical for hotel use.
They also found that two other tourists died in May 2009 at a Phi Phi Island hotel near the one where the Bélanger sisters died. Their deaths were also linked to pesticide use.
There have been reports of a dozen similar deaths in Thailand and Viet Nam in the last three years.
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