It is nearly 3 am on this day of national celebration when two almost simultaneous explosions resound on a petrochemical site near the Etang de Berre, a few kilometers from Marseille-Marignane Airport. Two vessels are affected, resulting in fires.
One, touching a petrol tank is controlled at dawn. The other, who grabbed a naphtha tank, liquid product produced from the distillation of oil, will be fully extinguished in the late morning. Until then, it will have generated an impressive plume of black smoke, visible throughout a portion of the coast of Bouches-du-Rhône. “No injuries were reported,” he quickly said the prefecture, which has set up a “preventive barrage” on the Etang de Berre to prevent pollution by “fire water”. As for the smoke plume, it was “not toxic.”
#Quel site was affected?
Site LyondellBasell, including all the approaches were blocked Tuesday morning, kept away by police with gas masks, s’ covers nearly 1,000 acres at the edge of the Etang de Berre and employs about 1,000 people. Operating globally, the site includes petrochemical processing facilities such as a steam cracker and storage and distribution facilities (pipelines, port terminals).
The industrial site owned since 2008 LyondellBasell group registered the Netherlands and listed on Wall Street ($ 46 billion in sales in 2014, more than 13,000 employees around the world). A fire had already hit a refinery in 2011 the group located near the Etang de Berre, about one kilometer from the site affected Tuesday. But in 2011, it was “leaking” with “maybe a starting fire” that was “quickly mastered” his recollection responsible to AFP. This time the incident “has nothing to do”: the a naphtha tank that burned until late morning had a capacity of 40,000 m3
#. Why the accident is ruled out a priori
From the morning, several sources close to the record indicated to AFP that a malicious act was “a serious hypothesis.”
According to first elements of the investigation, the probability that the two fires of remote tanks of 500 m can be accidental is very low. The investigators emphasize the thesis of a voluntary act. “
Members of the Institute of Criminal Research of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) should also make findings on the site.
On Tuesday afternoon, the prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence has opened an investigation for “destruction by fire “, said the deputy prosecutor Remy Avon during a press conference near the scene. “The prosecution of Aix decided to open an investigation to determine the circumstances and causes of this double fire . For now, they remain unknown since we could not make the initial findings, “he said.
Asked about a possible connection between these facts and theft, July 7 of plastic bread and detonators at a military site Miramas, about thirty kilometers, the sub-prefect of Istres, Jean-Marc Senator, simply felt that investigators “could ask the question” but that it was too early to establish such a link.
What is known about the massive theft of explosives based on Miramas
Close to the site of LyondellBasell, six large pipes were still deployed Tuesday at midday With a length of 1.8 km each. they allowed firefighters to pump water into the pond of Berre to the mix of products to create the foam that allowed them to turn the fire .
(Boris Horvat / AFP)
#A again referred Seveso site?
The petrochemical site LyondellBasell Berre-Pond is one of 1,171 facilities with risk of major accidents, which are classified “Seveso” in France. The Seveso directive requires EU states to identify industrial sites for which an accident could cause serious immediate consequences for staff, residents, property and the environment and to take steps to address them.
The Directive distinguishes two types of institutions, classified as “high threshold” or “low threshold” according to the total amount of hazardous materials on the site. LyondellBasell The site is ranked high threshold, which ranks among the approximately 656 highly sensitive industrial sites in the area.
The attack of 26 June against Air Products plant in Saint -Quentin Fallavier, in Isère, was the first against a Seveso in France. The site of Air Products is classified “low threshold” but in its vicinity two sites in “high threshold” which an institution of Total. The explosion was so hurt anyone but es devastation caused September 21, 2001 by the explosion of the AZF fertilizer factory in Toulouse ( 31 dead and hundreds of injured) give an idea of the danger of targeted attacks against such sites.
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