AZF factory explosion

21 September 2001 Toulouse · France

31Deaths

Not quantifiedDisplaced / homeless

$1.8bnEstimated cost

31 dead and about 2,500 injured.
About 2 billion euros of material damage.

Ten days after 9/11, 300 to 400 tonnes of ammonium nitrate explode in a fertiliser plant in the heart of the Toulouse urban area. The blast, recorded as a magnitude 3.4 earthquake, digs a crater 70 m long.

Consequences

Human consequences

31 dead and about 2,500 injured; many residents suffer lasting hearing damage and trauma.

Environmental consequences

A cloud of nitrous gases forms over the city; windows are blown out for kilometres and the south-western districts of Toulouse are devastated.

Economic consequences

About 2 billion euros of damage: homes, schools, concert halls. The site is redeveloped into the Oncopole, a cancer research centre.

Political consequences

After sixteen years of proceedings, the plant manager and the operator Grande Paroisse are definitively convicted in 2017. A 2003 law creates technological risk prevention plans and insurance cover for technological disasters.

Similar disasters

In the rankings : The worst industrial and nuclear disasters No. 7

Explore it on the 3D globe. See this disaster among 88 of the major disasters in history, from Pompeii to the present day, with its spread, its timeline and comparable events.

See it on the globe