Four blankets blew a nitrocellulose storage hangar from the private company Eurencote. Eight people were injured, including one seriously.
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The site of La Pourtrie, in Bergerac (Dordogne), had not known such an industrial accident since October 3, 1980, black day during which 900 tonnes of nitrocellulose had caught fire in several of its buildings.
Wednesday August 3, shortly before 2 p.m., four explosions blew a nitrocellulose storage hangar from the private company Eurenco, direct descendant of the late the National Powder and Explosives (SNPE) definitively privatized in 2004. S ‘ This is followed by a slight clearance of smoke and a start of fire quickly controlled by the sixty firefighters dispatched aboard thirty-two devices of the departmental fire and rescue rescue on this high-risk site.
Since 2015, the company specializing in the manufacture of the “nitro” which is entering the composition of explosives for military or civil use (black powder, cartridges of sporting fire, fireworks mortars) is classified seveo ” high threshold “, in other words at the highest risk level for populations in the event of an accident. It is one of the five of the Dordogne and one of the three based in the south of the department with the company of Polyrey laminate, in Baneuil and the SME Brézac Artifices, specialized in the manufacture of fireworks, at the Fleix.
Disagging on, the Eurenco building (ex-Manico) injured eight people, including a seriously in the legs and the lower abdomen which was heliphered by the SMUR at the CHU Pellegrin, in Bordeaux. The seven relative emergency victims were transported by the emergency services to the Bergerac hospital center, which had started its white plan in the early afternoon.
Half of the 78 Eurenco employees were present on the site at the time of the explosion. Thirty of them, slightly inconvenienced by the release of smoke which followed the explosions, was sent in a second step, towards the hospitals of Périgueux and Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde). According to our information, among the most seriously affected victims, would appear several employees of a subcontractor responsible for ensuring the maintenance of the site traditionally stopped during the first twenty days of August.
The accidental track would be privileged 2>
The mayor of Bergerac, Jonathan Prioleaud, immediately went there. As a security measure, traffic has been cut and a three -kilometer safety perimeter was deployed around the industrial site on hectare quinte at the east entrance to the city. Several dwellings have been evacuated and the reception area for traveling people, which are very busy during this period of the year, gradually emptied of all its occupants.
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