Talk:Toulouse chemical factory explosion

Untitled
What is that with the "The French government placed ads in Liberation, a newspaper in France (which is not read by Islamicists)"? The previous authour put that in, but I haven't heard anything about this ... --there_is_no_spoon 00:39, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * This is true, confirmed by the newspaper itself. Much of the negotiation between the French government and this extortionist group was carried out through personal ads placed in the newspaper. Physchim62 15:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * What's the full name of AZF? Can anyone specify it in the article? --Yacht 02:24, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that that is their full name. To the best of my knowledge that was the name of the chemical plant that was blown up. One must note, that this is the first time this terrorist group has done anything, so a lot is unknown about them! --there_is_no_spoon 15:10, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * AZF is short for AZote Fertilisants. However, it is now univerally known by its abbreviation (including on French Wikipedia, so a move seems unappropriate. In Toulouse, before the explosion, it was usually referred to as "La Grande Paroisse", after the company that owned it (long since a subsidiary of Atofina). Physchim62 15:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Um... is there anything else backing up this Hassan Jandoubi theory besides one article in the Guardian? Is there another way to word this than the passive-tense "It is suspected"??? And I'd definitely agree with there_is_no_spoon's confusion over this bizarre "Islamicists don't read Liberation" thing... -- mj
 * I'm fairly sure I remember reading about the AZF explosion a couple of years ago. In our papaer it said the guy had on several layers of underwear, as is usual with suicide bombers. So that should be pretty clear.

That theory went out the window pretty quickly. The guy wore three pairs of underpants because he had a complex about his small buttocks (no, honestly, several independant witnesses confirmed it!). Physchim62 15:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * by the way: it looks like some guys from the AZF got caught . If this comes in tomorrows news and it isn't in here by then, I'll enter it! --there_is_no_spoon 15:06, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Number of fatalities?
This article currently says:


 * "The disaster caused 30 deaths (28 from the factory, one lycéen — secondary school/high school pupil — from a neighbouring school)..."

28 + 1 = 29, so where does the 30 come from?

I just checked the NYTimes archive; the article "French Search for Cause of Chemical Plant Explosion" (September 25, 2001) says:


 * "The blast left 29 people dead, at least 10 missing, and injured more than 2,500..."

Should the 30 in the article be changed to 29?

-- Jim Douglas 07:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

http://www.hse.gov.uk/landuseplanning/toulouse.pdf Ministry for Regional Development and the Environment report:

″The explosion occurred at 10.17 am., in building 221. It caused the death of 30 people, 22 inside the factory and 8 outside. 2,500 were injured, 30 of them seriously and one of whom died last week. The explosion took place 3 km from the centre of Toulouse ″

Jeff.R.Bowman (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Number of victims
French Wikipedia and the report of the ministery of ecology both speak of 2500 wounded (about 30 of them seriously), not 8000+2500 as the article says. Where does the latter figure come from? As long there's no source for the 8000 I'll change it to match french Wikipedia. --dingensfünf 23:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Crater size
I think the crater figures shown in this article are widely overstated, and that 30 m (100 ft) in diameter and 10 m (33 ft) deep would be more sensible figures, as stated by other sources. A diameter of 50 m (165 ft) is also mentioned a number of times, and it would probably fit more properly to a deep of 10 m, as the crater walls are unlikely to be very steep (in case this last figure is right).

Article Split
Would it be wise to split the article into a page about the terrorist group, and a page about the factory? Although they are related, they do deal with entirely different topics. Jem 12:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, split the page to AZF (Terrorist Group) Jem 00:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Depth And Size of Crater
There is a huge difference between the reported size of the crater on the French and the English Wikipedia. Compare :

--Caerbannog (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 20 to 30m deep, 200m diameter (en)
 * 5 to 6m deep, 70m by 50m (fr)

Aftermath
The following does not appear in the document cited in "Report of the General Inspectocorate [sic] for the Environment: Accident on the 21st of September 2001 at a factory belonging to the Grande Paroisse Company in Toulouse" and requires a citation.
 * Specifically it is believed by mandated official experts that "a mislabeled 500kg bin of sodium dichloroisocyanurate mistakenly thought to be ammonium nitrate was dumped in the off spec ammonium nitrate warehouse. Here under sufficiently hot and humid conditions it could have reacted with the ammonium nitrate to form nitrogen trichloride which is an exceedingly unstable compound. The decomposition of the nitrogen trichloride could have provided the heat and pressure required to detonate the ammonium nitrate which when used as an industrial explosive typically requires detonators. Jeff.R.Bowman (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071103020957/http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/04/gen.france.explosion/index.html to http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/04/gen.france.explosion/index.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071216031911/http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2001/10/05/News/Explosion.In.France.May.Have.Been.Terrorism-1407283.shtml to http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2001/10/05/News/Explosion.In.France.May.Have.Been.Terrorism-1407283.shtml

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