REPORTAGE
For the past week, the whole world has been watching Lebanon. The country's capital, Beirut, was half destroyed due to two explosions in the port on Tuesday August 4. The importance of the explosions, according to the first elements of the investigation, were caused by the large stock of ammonium nitrate stored in one of the hangars. This compound, used in the production of fertilizers but also explosives, was already at the origin of the explosion of the AZF factory in Toulouse in 2001. All eyes are now on the many French sites that hold ammonium nitrate.
>> READ ALSO - Lebanon: at the origin of the two explosions, ammonium nitrate and negligence
"We must be vigilant"
"I think there is this notion of 'we live with' and then I think that for many, they do not know what is manufactured in the Yara factory", explains Marie-Aline Leclerc, president of the Association. Dongeoise of risk areas (ADZRP). For her, the danger is integrated, as if it has melted into the background. Because in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, next to the refinery and the oil terminal, there is a factory owned by the Yara company, the world leader in fertilizers.
Large stocks of ammonium nitrate, the same compound which wiped out part of the Lebanese capital's map, are therefore kept there. But unlike Beirut, the storage there is secure, according to the findings during a recent visit by Thierry Noguet, the mayor of the town. “You have to be vigilant, but at Yara the material is arranged in rings, which is a little more secure,” he explains.
Yara, a company repeatedly called to order
Except that the company is far from unanimous. Yara ( who did not wish to respond to requests from Europe 1, editor's note ) has been called to order several times for polluting discharges in the Loire and in the air. Even Thierry Noguet recognizes it: his power as mayor is limited. "We have police power over our city, but for a company, if not to alert, from the moment we are aware of a security malfunction", there are no other things to do, to hear the chosen one.
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Lubrizol still in the heads
While the technological risk prevention plan provides for the provision of a containment room in the event of problems, barely a third of the 160 homes affected by the PRRT are equipped. Something to worry the inhabitants, who remember that a little less than a year ago, the Lubrizol factory caught fire in Rouen and triggered a major industrial disaster. The site was classified "Seveso" ( which allows to have a high level of prevention, editor's note ), as are all the installations storing more than 1,250 tonnes of ammonium nitrates.