More Dead in French Chemical Blast
TOULOUSE, France (AP) - A huge explosion, apparently accidental, ripped through a chemical fertilizer plant in this southwestern French city Friday, killing 18 people, injuring about 200, and terrifying some residents who thought it was a terror attack.
Windows were blown out for miles and red plumes of smoke wafted across Toulouse, home to nearly a million people and the country's aeronautics industry.
Officials blocked off the industrial area just south of Toulouse, evacuated schools, a hospital, and other buildings, closed the airport and subway, rerouted drivers and told people to stay home as a precaution. The city's streets were virtually deserted in the hours after the late-morning blast.
At first, some Toulouse residents thought the blast at the AZF chemical plant was a terror attack.
``We all thought it was a bomb when it happened,'' said Guy Physsens, a truck driver who was delivering supplies to the factory. ``I dropped flat on my stomach, and when I got up, I saw people who were bleeding everywhere.'' Physsens stayed on site to help rescuers.
Sandra Muller, a mother of three reached by The Associated Press, said houses in her neighborhood trembled. She feared a plane had exploded.
``We're next to the airport. With everything that's happened, there's a kind of psychosis,'' Muller said by phone, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
Regional officials said 18 people were killed and 200 injured, 50 of them seriously.
The blast reduced much of the plant to rubble, and in many places, only metal beams remained standing. The explosion was on par with an earthquake of magnitude 3.2, according to France's Strasbourg Geophysics Institute.
There were early concerns that the plumes of smoke could be toxic, though officials said that appeared not to be the case. ``At the moment the tests of air at the site show no traces of toxicity,'' regional prefect Hubert Fournier said.
Still, residents were asked to stay in their homes for about six hours and limit their intake of tap water because the explosion site was near a water plant.
The company called the blast at the AZF plant an accident, and French radio reported that workers had made an error in mixing chemicals. However, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who visited the scene, said: ``We cannot establish at this moment the causes of what is an accident or something else. An investigation is under way.''
AZF is the brand-name under which Grande Paroisse, France's largest fertilizer manufacturer, sells its products. Grande Paroisse is owned by Atofina, the chemicals unit of TotalFinaElf - the world's fourth-biggest oil group.
The AZF plant, where 460 people work, is among 372 sites in France classified under a European Union directive as high-risk, meaning that extra security precautions must be taken.
The high-risk designation, officially named ``Seveso,'' was put in place after a 1976 chemical disaster in the Italian village of Seveso, where a pharmaceutical factory malfunctioned, producing a toxic cloud containing dioxin.
The AZF factory was destroyed by the 10:15 a.m. blast. Nearby buildings at the site collapsed, and there was related damage throughout downtown Toulouse, officials said.
At the site, debris was strewn everywhere and cars were torn apart. People with limbs bloodied from flying glass were seen running out of stores in downtown Toulouse, 2 1/2 miles away, French television said.
Some residents were trying to leave the city, causing large traffic jams. Some people described stinging eyes and throats and a strong, pervasive odor.
A director of a journalism school close to the explosion site said he'd heard a ``terrible blast.''
``All the windows were shattered and the ceilings have collapsed in the school,'' said Bertrand Thomas. ``There was panic, and everyone tried to get out of the area.''
Toulouse, some 425 miles south of Paris, is home to Airbus, the European consortium, as well as Arianespace, the European Space Agency's commercial arm.
Originally published September 21, 2001.
