The two gigantic explosions in the port of Beirut which left more than 100 dead and 4,000 wounded rekindled traumatic memories of the AZF disaster in 2001 in Toulouse on Wednesday August 5, victims' associations expressing their " compassion and anger ". " It's the same spectacle as in AZF to a greater degree, the same vision of wounded, swept away walls and degradation ", explains to AFP Jacques Mignard, president of the association " AZF - Memory and solidarity ".
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Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that these blasts were mainly due to the explosion of some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, the same substance involved in the AZF disaster in Toulouse. “ Every time there is compassion. It is terrible for the Lebanese when we remember what we went through ”, insists Claudine Molin, member of the association“ Never again, neither here nor elsewhere ”.
"Our experience was useless"
On September 21, 2001, 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a hangar in the middle of Toulouse exploded. The explosion, which blows the chemical complex AZF (Nitrogen Fertilizers), is heard up to 80 km around, killing 31 and injuring 2,500. “ I am angry. Our experience was of no use. In two years, we won't remember it anymore and that saddens me. This should not happen again in 2020, ”says Ms. Molin, insisting on the need to“ take an interest in industrial risks apart from disasters ”.
Ammonium nitrate, which is used in the composition of certain fertilizers but also of explosives, " cannot be stored anywhere and anyhow ", underlines the former rapporteur of a commission of inquiry on the AZF disaster. “ We tell ourselves that we are storing so much nitrate and we don't mind it. This is terrible. It's a series of negligence, it's always the same thing ”, regrets Serge Baggi.
Read also: Explosion of the AZF factory in 2001: the company and the former director definitively condemned
The former director of the AZF chemical plant and the operating company were definitively sentenced at the end of 2019, 18 years after the explosion which traumatized and upset Toulouse, the Court of Cassation having rejected their appeals. The former director Serge Biechlin had been sentenced to 15 months suspended prison sentence for " manslaughter ", and the company managing the site, the company Grande Paroisse, to a maximum fine of 225,000 euros.