20 years after the AZF explosion, some victims still relive “these scenes of the apocalypse” – BFMTV

On September 21, 2001, they were near the AZF Toulouse factory when it exploded. In addition to the physical after-effects, some victims have to live with the tragic images they faced that day.

Twenty years later, the victims have not forgotten anything about the explosion. It was 10:17 a.m. on September 21, 2001, when a stock of 300 to 400 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in the AZF factory in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). The detonation – equivalent to a magnitude 3.4 earthquake – is heard several tens of kilometers from the city. 31 people die, thousands more are injured.

For the victims, the consequences are long-lasting. “18 months after the disaster, 6.7% of residents in the area near the site reported hearing loss following the explosion”, wrote the Institute for Public Health Surveillance in 2004.

Beyond these physical repercussions, the organization notes at the time “the psychological impact” of the drama, with “the prevalence of post-traumatic stress or high depressive symptoms among students, workers and inhabitants of the area. closest to the explosion “.

“20 years later I am still dealing with cases of people who are in psychological worsening or ENT”, affirms Pauline Miranda, president of the Association of victims of September 21, 2001, at BFMTV.com. She evokes cases of depressed, anxious people who are “still very badly” today.

“I thought we were all going to die”

She herself was driving in her car, 200 meters from the AZF factory, on the day of the explosion. The breath threw her away. “I saw college, school explode, and that day, I completely lost hearing in my left ear, and almost completely in my right ear,” she says.

Manu Benitah was 20 at the time. He was also next to AZF, in a car with his mother and his three-year-old brother, at the time of the detonation. “We heard a first boom, I thought at first that it was the truck in front of us that had bumped into us,” he recalls.

He then discovers the situation by getting out of the car: “There were stones falling from the factory, from the bridge, they were exploding everywhere.” He helps his mother and his little brother to get out of the vehicle in their turn. “They were bleeding. I thought we were all going to die.”

Manu Benitah drives his family to his grandparents, who live nearby, and then heads to primary school to try to help the children. He remembers seeing a teacher carrying several students in his arms – “Some were bleeding, everyone looked completely lost, dazed.” In the streets, people are lying on the ground. “I don’t know if they were dead or not,” he explains today.

Jacques Mignard was working in the AZF factory that morning. He says he left his office, which was about ten meters from the warehouse which exploded, a few minutes before the tragedy. “When I returned there everything was destroyed, the ceiling had collapsed”, and some of his colleagues present in the room at the time of the explosion, did not survive, explains the president of the association “AZF, memory and solidarity”.

“We try to forget, but we will never forget”

These images of disaster, even years later, the victims do not forget. “Whether in 20, 30 or 40 years, until the end of my life, as soon as I close my eyes, I will see these scenes of the apocalypse again”, declares Pauline Miranda.

“I can smell a fire from a great distance”, tells The Dispatch Michèle Darchicourt, also victim of the explosion. Today, she can no longer stand the sound of thunder or the sight of a yellowing sky, “at times, I no longer see the colors of life”.

The victims can “relive the drama through the senses, whether through smells, a sound, an image, physical sensations, which remind them of this moment”, explains to BFMTV.com Armelle Vautrot, psychoanalyst specializing in trauma and doctoral student researcher at CNRS. In therapy “we work to deactivate this, but anyway, we have to learn to live with the trauma once it is there”.

Pauline Miranda also tells how the explosion in Beirut in August 2020 “woke up old wounds” in her. The explosion, again caused by ammonium nitrate, killed around 100 people. “Each time, there is compassion. It’s terrible for the Lebanese when we remember what we lived”, declared then on BFMTV Claudine Molin, member of the Toulouse association “Never again this nor here nor elsewhere “.

After the disaster, everyone still tried to find some semblance of normal life. But “every day we think about it, we try to forget, but we will never forget, so I try not to talk about it every day”, explains Manu Benitah. “I sometimes try to take the subject as a joke. I’m 40 years old, two children, I don’t want to stay on AZF all my life.” After the explosion, he suffered from tinnitus and had repeated ear infections, but “we live like that, there are some who died”, he puts into perspective.

“The basic principle with trauma is that it is an encounter with death, and not necessarily yours, with the possibility of death”, explains Armelle Vautrot. It is “difficult for people who get by, some do not feel legitimate to be a victim, there is sometimes a certain guilt in having survived”, she underlines.

“Who is guilty?”

In addition, “unlike attacks, in natural or technological disasters, there is no intentionality”. “It is therefore more complicated to manage for the victims, who is guilty?”, Emphasizes Armelle Vautrot. “Then it’s more difficult for the construction.”

In 2017, after three trials, the former director of the site, Serge Biechlin, was sentenced to 15 months suspended prison sentence and a 10,000 euros fine. He and the company Grande Parish, a subsidiary of the Total oil group, were found guilty of manslaughter and unintentional injury. Justice considered that they had shown “negligence” and “serious faults”, and the company was fined 225,000 euros.

Jacques Mignard went through the tragedy by participating very actively in the trial, by getting involved with his work colleagues, who were also victims. “We are crushed by the event, it is something that we have a hard time getting out of, something that only we can understand,” he explains.

“I couldn’t walk through these streets anymore”

For Pauline Miranda, the shock of this day was so violent that she had to leave the metropolis. “I was on antidepressants for five years, I couldn’t walk back through those streets where I had seen the horror. I was in a state … It was terrible.” “After five years we had to move” to live outside Toulouse, she said.

As the 20-year anniversary of the explosion approaches, she confides that for her “it’s not easy, all birthdays are difficult”. She explains having trouble sleeping and being anxious. “Each time this stirs things up, for us victims it is not easy.”

Manu Benitah still works in Toulouse. He walks past the old factory site every day. “It does something,” he said, adding that he would like to “bring this place back to life, not leave it naked, but make it alive.”

On site, a first memorial has already been installed. To be unveiled this Tuesday, a memorial journey comprising, as announced by the Toulouse town hall, “nine desks retracing the history of the factory, its industrial past from 1924 to the present day, the disaster itself, then the post-disaster, trials and site renewal. “