On the 21st September 2001, an explosion in Shed 221 of the AZF fertilizer plant, 3 km from Toulouse, France, killed thirty people and injured nearly two thousand five hundred people. Run by Atofina, which operates several factories around France, the AZF plant in Toulouse specialized in the manufacture of fertilizers, producing ammo-nitrate fertilizers from nitric acid and ammonia. Amongst other dangerous substances it held important quantities of liquefied ammonia and chlorine, combustibles, solid ammonium nitrate and fertilizers, as well as methanol. Today, the scientific explanation for this disaster still remains unanswered. Countless investigations are still in progress to try to establish the chain of events that occurred in hanger 221 in Toulouse, where the tragic explosion took place. According to the judicial enquiry, the explosion was caused by a human handling error. A worker from a subcontracting company is said to have mistaken a 500-kilo sack of a chlorine compound (dichloroisocyanuric acid) for nitrate granules and poured it onto the stock of ammonium nitrate in Shed 221 a quarter of an hour before the explosion. The mixture is said to have produced nitrogen trichloride, an unstable gas that explodes at normal temperatures. But according to TotalFinaElf, owner of AZF, has suggested another hypothesis through its own commission of enquiry, claiming that the explosion was caused by an electric arc between two transformers located outside the plant. A newspaper in Toulouse, alleges that the ammonium nitrate that caused the explosion at the AZF factory was stacked "in a real dump" with minimal surveillance and security, and "incredible negligence". The newspaper also reported that the storage area was excluded from the area to be inspected by a regional industry and environment authority in May 2001.

The Impact

It caused the death of 30 people, 22 inside the factory and 8 outside. 2500 were injured, many of them seriously. The accident also affected two other chemical plants in the vicinity. It rendered a large number of houses uninhabitable and affected the electricity distribution system with more than 11,000 homes and university, school and public buildings without windowpanes and with weakened structures. Moreover, there were psychological after-effects on the population that first believed it to be a terrorist attack. The catastrophe cost the French government 228 million euros and Total FinaElf, owner of AZF, more than 2 billion.

The Lessons Learnt from the Disaster

The explosion is one of the biggest industrial disasters in France and one of the most dreadful chemical accidents worldwide. This is the third major chemical disaster after the accident in Seveso (Italy, 1976), which compelled a revision of EU legislation, and the one that took place in Bhopal (India, 1984). It may be noted that the AZF plant was fully covered by the Seveso II directive, which aims at the prevention of major industrial accidents and the limitation of their consequences for man and the environment. The company was also certified with both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 standards but this did not help prevent the accident. As a result, a section of people expressed their disagreement with a situation in which health and safety of workers depends on standards (ISO 9000 and 14000) that do not guarantee protection. They also mentioned that protection is not granted with the publication of regulations such as the Seveso Directive either, since the application of the Directive does not cover all affected installations.