AZF Factory Incident : What Caused The Explosion ?
The morning of September 21 will remain forever etched in the collective memory of the “pink city”. But do we know for sure today what really happened?
The appalling shock wave caused at 10:17 a.m. by the explosion of the AZF factory, equivalent to an intensity of 4.3 on the Richter scale, is perceptible within a radius of 6 km and the human toll of the disaster is heavy: 30 dead, including 21 AZF factory employees, thousands of injured, several dozen of whom will remain permanently disabled.
35,000 homes damaged, a third of which were seriously or totally damaged, hundreds of affected companies which must put their employees on technical unemployment, a destroyed psychiatric hospital, several schools or universities seriously affected: the material damage is assessed by insurers at 2,3 billion euros, at the expense of the company TotalFinaElf which opts for a strategy of responsibility… radically opposed to that adopted in 1999 during the sinking of the oil tanker Erika. The results could have been much heavier since the industrial site also includes the National Society of Powders and Explosives (SNPE) and Tolochimie, where particularly toxic products are handled. The settlements around the AZF site, built in 1924, were not frozen until 1984. Toulouse thus lived on a veritable time bomb in the heart of a highly urbanized area.
Ten days after the World Trade Center tragedy, psychosis is at its height and the majority of the Toulouse population believes in a criminal trail ... not without disturbing arguments!
An attack ?
Rumors certainly, but based on proven facts! The day before the explosion, an altercation pitted three interim handlers of North African origin against delivery drivers who displayed an American flag at half mast. The most virulent handler, Hassan J., is said to have threatened: “Remember that, guys; tomorrow will be a great day." He was found dead at his post on September 21 and the coroner noted that he was wearing five layers of underwear ... as if to imitate certain Islamist suicide bombers who symbolically protect their gender to take advantage of virgins supposed to welcome them to heaven. An hour after the attack, two vehicles are checked 100 km from Toulouse ... while traffic in the city was blocked. The back window of one of the cars is smashed due to the blast of the explosion, explains its owner ... who claims to be walking. The occupants of the vehicles are members of an Islamist group with Afghan leanings. The RG investigation confirms that Hassan J. has contacts with this Islamic movement.
However, the police waited a week before raiding Hassan J.'s home. They found nothing: his partner, anxious to forget as quickly as possible, threw the young man's clothes, photos and letters away. As for the five layers of underwear, she explains that her friend wanted to hide his thinness that complexed him. Even if investigators quickly rule out the criminal track, a large part of the public remains skeptical as well as the staff and the plant manager.
How to explain the hypothesis of an accident ?
The investigation is open for "manslaughter by willful breach of a particular obligation of safety or prudence". The college of experts seems convinced that the disaster happened accidentally as a result of a series of negligence in the company. The stock of 300 tonnes of ammonitrates (chemical fertilizers deemed inert without any risk of spontaneous explosion except fire or detonator) was stored in a poorly maintained hangar, on a gnawed concrete base up to the trellis. An employee allegedly accidentally placed a 500-kilogram bag of chlorine products on top of the ammonitrates, causing the formation of nitrogen trichloride, a particularly dangerous gas that can explode at room temperature. Human error would therefore be at the origin of the AZF factory explosion, especially since the security conditions were far from being respected in hangar 221. According to them and experts from the Total group, the explosion was caused by the formation of an electric arc between two transformers outside the plant, which would have acted as a detonator.
Never again ?
In terms of industrial risks, have the lessons of the tragedy of the AZF factory been learned? At least the protective measures were reinforced by the law of July 30, 2003 and 3,000 hazard studies must be examined, but it is the companies that remain primarily responsible for the security of their sites. Ten million French people now live near one of the 1,150 "Seveso" sites, including 630 considered to be at high risk. These sites owe their name to the city in northern Italy where the 1976 chemical reactor explosion produced herbicides. The release of dioxins into the atmosphere had not resulted in any direct deaths but a European awareness of the need to improve prevention in terms of technological risks.
