AZF (French initialism for
AZote Fertilisant, i.e. nitrogen fertiliser) was the name of a chemical factory near
ToulouseToulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, which exploded on 21 September 2001. In Spring 2004, a
terrorist groupAZF is a terrorist group based in France. The first record of the group was in Spring 2004. At this time the group is believed to have taken its name from the explosion of the AZF chemical factory in Toulouse in 2001....
adopted the same name and threatened the French government with bombings on railways.
On 21 September 2001, a huge
explosionAn explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...
occurred in the
AZF fertiliser factory in Toulouse, France, belonging to the
Grande Paroisse branch of the
TotalTotal S.A. is a French oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international...
group.
Three hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrates were stored (the maximum capacity was 2,000 tonnes) in the hangar #221.
AZF (French initialism for
AZote Fertilisant, i.e. nitrogen fertiliser) was the name of a chemical factory near
ToulouseToulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, which exploded on 21 September 2001. In Spring 2004, a
terrorist groupAZF is a terrorist group based in France. The first record of the group was in Spring 2004. At this time the group is believed to have taken its name from the explosion of the AZF chemical factory in Toulouse in 2001....
adopted the same name and threatened the French government with bombings on railways.
Toulouse chemical factory explosion
On 21 September 2001, a huge
explosionAn explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...
occurred in the
AZF fertiliser factory in Toulouse, France, belonging to the
Grande Paroisse branch of the
TotalTotal S.A. is a French oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international...
group.
Three hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrates were stored (the maximum capacity was 2,000 tonnes) in the hangar #221. The whole factory was destroyed making a crater of depth 20 to 30 m (65 to 100 ft), with a diametre of 200 m (650 ft); steel girders were found 3 km away from the explosion. The explosion was heard 80 km away (50 miles). Due to the acoustics of the hills and the large sound, the explosion was reported as occurring in multiple places. Police at first believed that at least five bombs had simultaneously gone off. There is still controversy over the exact number of explosions.
The factory was close to the city: one of the most inhabited areas,
Le Mirail, is just one kilometre away (0.6 miles). Several schools, one university campus, one hospital and a psychiatric hospital had to be evacuated.
Victims
The disaster caused 29 deaths (28 from the factory, one secondary school pupil — from a neighbouring school), 2,500 seriously wounded and 8,000 light casualties. Two thirds of the city's windows were shattered, causing 70 eye wounds and several thousand wounds which had to be sutured. The full environmental consequences of the catastrophe are not yet completely known. The total damages already paid by insurance groups are exceeding now 1.5 billion euros.
40,000 people — 10 % of the population — were made homeless for a few days.
Aftermath
The results of the official enquiry were that a warehouse of
ammonium nitrateThe chemical compound ammonium nitrate, the nitrate of ammonia with the chemical formula NH4NO3, is a white crystalline solid at room temperature and standard pressure...
had exploded following improper handling of this dangerous material, including mixing with chemical
impuritiesImpurities are substances inside a confined amount of liquid, gas, or solid, which differ from the chemical composition of the material or compound.Impurities are either naturally occurring or added during synthesis of a chemical or commercial product...
.
Specifically it is believed by mandated official experts that "a mislabeled 500kg bin of sodium dichloroisocyanate mistakenly thought to be ammonium nitrate was dumped in the off spec ammonium nitrate warehouse. Here under sufficiently hot and humid conditions it could have reacted with the ammonium nitrate to form
nitrogen trichlorideNitrogen trichloride, also known as trichloramine, trichlorine nitride is the chemical compound with the formula NCl3. This yellow, oily, pungent-smelling liquid is most commonly encountered as a byproduct of chemical reactions between ammonia-derivatives and chlorine...
which is an exceedingly unstable compound. The decomposition of the nitrogen trichloride could have provided the heat and pressure required to detonate the ammonium nitrate which when used as an industrial explosive typically requires detonators."
Investigation
On 4 October 2001, France's then Environment Minister
Yves CochetYves Cochet is a French politician, member of The Greens. He was minister in the government of Lionel Jospin.He wrote Apocalypse pétrole which was published in 2005.-External links:*...
announced that the explosion
"may have been a terrorist attack" and identified
Hassan JandoubiHassan Jandoubi was a French national of Tunisian parents, who was killed on September 21, 2001, in the AZF chemical factory explosion at Toulouse in Southern France...
, a plant sub-contractor killed in the blast, as a person under investigation. French anti terrorist authorities were prohibited by the Toulouse prosecutor from searching Jandoubi's house for five days after the incident
. Police declared that Jandoubi had
"possible Islamic fundamentalist sympathies", yet by the time the search was finally conducted, Jandoubi's girlfriend had disposed of all traces of his clothes or photos. French authorities described the delay as damaging to the investigation.
External links
Unofficial AZF website Pictures & Photos of AZF two years after AZF -a judicial fiasco ? (French News, 8.Oct.2008) AZF: L'enquête assassinée Le Dossier AZF by Daniel Dissy