South suburb of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), September 21, 2001. It is 10:17 am when part of a stock of approximately 300 tons of ammonium nitrate intended for the production of fertilizers explodes in a hangar of the chemical plant Nitrogen Fertilizers (AZF). The blast dug an oval-shaped crater 70 m long and 40 m wide, and 6 m deep. The main detonation is heard more than 80 km from the pink city. The energy released is then comparable to that of a magnitude 3.4 earthquake.
As in Beirut, this Tuesday, August 4, where according to Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were stored in the warehouse of the port where the explosion occurred, the explosion seems to take place in two stages. But, in Toulouse, the interval between the two detonations is very short, of the order of a few seconds, this September 21, 2001, against a few minutes it seems in Lebanon. Is it in fact a double bang following a single explosion? Experts have never managed to agree on this issue.
Long-term health consequences
The explosion sweeps through the city and sows chaos and death in its path. The final toll shows 31 dead, including 21 on the plant site, and around 2,500 injured. Most of them were hit by shards of glass propelled at very high speed.
The human damage in the long term is considerable. According to a study conducted by the Institute for Public Health Surveillance, more than three years after the disaster, 30% of people who experienced the explosion are still victims of tinnitus, 15% of men and 22% of women suffer from post-stress. traumatic. Finally, 34% of men and 50% of women report depressive episodes. As for material damage, they are estimated at more than two billion euros.
Nearly twenty years later, the exact origin of the explosion is still controversial. If the hypothesis of an unclaimed Islamist attack, ten days after September 11 in the United States, was quickly ruled out, the trail of the industrial accident has emerged as the most probable. But it was never possible to reconstruct the exact scenario that led to the explosion. A human handling error, bringing together a chlorinated product with ammonium nitrate (NH4 NO 3), has long been studied. But this lead never came to fruition.
A long legal process
In November 2004, the examining magistrate dismissed the case in favor of the nine employees of the AZF factory, indicted for non-compliance with safety rules. The first trial, organized in 2009, ended with the release of all the defendants.
And it was only after a long procedure, in 2017, that the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced the former director of the site to fifteen months suspended prison sentence for manslaughter and the company Grande Paroisse (Total group) , owner of the factory, to a fine of 225,000 euros.
The two parties are found guilty of "negligence" and "serious faults" which made the disaster possible. Their appeals before the Court of Cassation were rejected on December 17, 2019. The thesis of the chemical accident was accepted by the courts.
"Our experience was useless"
Nineteen years later, the gigantic explosions which rocked Beirut on Tuesday arouse "compassion" among the victims of the AZF disaster, but also anger. "It's terrible for the Lebanese when we remember what we went through," Claudine Molin, member of the association Never again, here or elsewhere, told AFP. " I'm mad. Our experience was of no use. In two years, we won't remember it anymore and that saddens me. It should not happen again in 2020, ”she laments.
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Ammonium nitrate, which is used in the composition of certain fertilizers but also of explosives, "cannot be stored anywhere and anyhow," recalls Serge Baggi, former employee of AZF and ex-rapporteur of the commission of inquiry the rapporteur of the commission of inquiry of the factory's health, safety and working conditions (CHSCT). “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 ”.