[NautiNurse]

Horror. Basic rule is to never use this pesticide near or under a dwelling.

[umgud]

Phosphine gas is both poisonous and flammable.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Heard this story on Fox on my way home from work this evening. Heart breaking.

Who sprayed the pesticide?

Were there any warning signs?

Story is pretty thin on facts.

[from occupied ga]

What pesticide releases phosphine gas in contact with water?

[2ndDivisionVet]

What is the poison gas that results from mixing ammonia with bleach?

[drypowder]

So sad, this same thing happened in California a few years ago witch prompted the federal EPA to impose strict usage guidelines for Aluminum and Zinc phosphide. Both are used as fumigants for insect control in storage grains and other ag seed commodities and for burrowing rodent control. It is dispensed in pellet or tablet form. The pellet/tablets are activated by ambient moisture and release pH3 (phosphine gas) over a period of days depending on the amount of moisture and how warm the temperature is. This pesticide is not applied as a spray. By attempting to wash the pesticide away from under the structure clearly caused the hastened release of the lethal concentration of phosphine gas. There is a minimum of 72 hour restriction to reenter the treatment sites. It is illegal in the US to use this pesticide within 100 feet of an occupied dwelling. Somebody is in deep do do.

[montag813]

Poor Edgar never knew what hit him

[DFG]

10 people were living in this house. Probably illegals.

[deport]

AMARILLO, Texas, Jan. 2 (UPI) — In an effort to rid his family’s home of rodents, a man may have
inadvertently poisoned his family last weekend because he was unaware of the extreme danger posed
by misuse of a pesticide he’d used against the rodents.

After applying a chemical called Weevil-Cide, Peter Balderas when back under his home to wash
some of it away with water. What he didn’t know is that when the chemical is exposed to water,
it produces phosphine gas — which causes respiratory failure.

“They were already getting an odor and they were trying to suppress the vapors. He didn’t know
enough about the chemical,” Amarillo Fire Department Lieutenant Josh Whitney, told KFDA-TV.
“The chemical is only sold to people that have a license to apply it, and he got this black market.
He applied it yesterday, and then so over the night is whenever all the toxic gasses were leeching
to inside the house “

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/01/03/Four-children-die-after-accidental-pesticide-gas-poisoning/2681483419553/