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CRIME

French arm of US chemical giant Lubrizol charged over toxic factory blaze

French prosecutors announced on Thursday they have charged the French subsidiary of US chemicals firm Lubrizol over a massive fire at a factory in northern France that spewed a vast cloud of acrid smoke across the region.

French arm of US chemical giant Lubrizol charged over toxic factory blaze
A huge cloud of toxic black smoke hung over Rouen for several days. Photo: SDIS 6

Lubrizol is owned by American billionaire Warren Buffett. Lubrizol France was charged with pollution and a failure to meet safety standards that resulted in “serious injury to health, security, or substantially degraded wildlife, flora, air, soil or water quality,” the Paris prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Lubrizol France was also ordered to pay a holding amount of €375,000 and further security of €4 million, “to guarantee the rights of victims by allowing for the repair of human and environmental damage that may have been caused”.

The amounts “correspond to the magnitude of the disaster,” said the statement, while adding investigators have not yet established the cause of the fire.

The fire at the toxic chemical plant broke out in the early hours of the morning in September after residents were woken by a series of explosions.


The smoke reached Belgium and the Netherlands. Photo: AFP

The cloud of thick black smoke spewing out of the site of the Lubrizol factory reached as far as Belgium and the Netherlands, with soot deposits found in both countries, according to the Centre de crise de Wallonie (CRC-W).

After battling the blaze for 24 hours firefighters finally managed to bring it under control, but smoke and soot hung over the town and surrounding areas for days, with locals complaining of a noxious smell hanging over the town, causing headaches and nausea. 

The soot also affected surrounding farmland and the sale of crops or animal products from 100 districts around Rouen was banned in the immediate aftermath of the blaze.


Oily black soot was seen on crops in nearby fields after the blaze. Photo: AFP

Schools in the town and surrounding areas were also closed as a massive clean-up operation began.

It is not the first time that he factory – which was designated a Seveso site, meaning that there was a high risk from the chemicals it produced – had hit the headlines. In 2013 a gas leak from the same factory created a terrible smell that reached as far as England.

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ENVIRONMENT

Homes evacuated as floods hit village in French Alps

More than 50 people had to be evacuated from their homes in a village in the French Alps as violent storms struck the south-east of the country.

Homes evacuated as floods hit village in French Alps

Less than four years after storm Alex struck the Boréon area of the Alpes-Maritimes département in September 2020, leading to 10 deaths, it was once again hit by severe weather, as the storms combined with high-altitude snow melt caused the Vésubie river to burst its banks.

The 1,400-population village of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, which was cut off from the rest of the country by the devastating 2020 storm, was again affected by severe weather.

Thierry Ingigliardi, the village’s deputy mayor in charge said: “Everything is being destroyed, we’re suffering the loss of roads yet again.” 

As a precaution, 52 people, including four children, were evacuated to a community hall.

But there was some confusion over the scale of damage caused by the flooding, after current Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin posted a message on X, formerly Twitter, saying that bridges had been washed away in the flooding. 

“None of the bridges are threatened, two fords have been washed away,” Gaël Nofri, deputy mayor of Nice, clarified on the social network.

But at least two bridges have been damaged, leaving around 20 homes cut off, while two other structures are still ‘under surveillance’, as the local council reported earlier. The latter also deplored “temporary infrastructures that are not holding”.

Hugues Moutouh, prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes region, told BFMTV: “Everyone is annoyed (…) It’s been going on for months now, we’re using temporary structures.”

Moutouh says he did not want “to come here again to see how powerless we are” when seasonal storms known as épisodes méditerranéens return in autumn. 

The storms in the Alps led to ‘once-in-a-century’ flooding in the Vaud canton of Switzlerand. Around one month’s rain fall fell in just an hour and caused major flooding in the town of Morges, which stands on the banks of Lake Geneva.

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