Oral Anglais AZF

I want to talk about a subject that is dear to my heart, because I have lived it intensely. This topic is the AZF blast, the worst industrial disaster in France. On September the 21 st, 2001, ten days after the attacks in New York, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, AZF factory blasts. This explosion is followed by another one with lower intensity. The detonation is heard 80 km around Toulouse. The blast throws metal sheets, beams, partitions and thousands of windows are destroyed. Mobile phones don’t work anymore because the transmission antennas are destroyed. The official record is 30 deaths, including 22 employees of the factory, and about 2500 wounded people, thirty in very seriously. According to the French health Institute at least 7,000 people are marked for life by the disaster. Nearly half of the sufferings are psychological: nightmares, anxiety, depression. Roadsiders stay without doors and windows for weeks, and many are jobless because of the destruction of their enterprise. Several hypothesis are raised: a terrorist attack, a gas blast, or handling error.

This day, I am13 and I'm in secondary school. My class is getting ready to go to the swimming pool. We leave school and we hear a huge noise, which seems to be very close to us. The teacher says that it’s the noise of planes during the taking off. But few seconds later another noise is heard. One week after the attacks in New York we think that it’s a new terrorist attack. Then, everything happens very quickly. We are not going to the swimming pool & we stay in the student’s hall, a very small space to contain 30 students. We stay there all the day, listening to the radio. After that we go to the refectory for lunch with clothes that protect our faces. The afternoon is very stressful. We listen to the radio, and we don‘t know what is happening. Some of us say that Airbus Industry has blasted. Students faint, others cry. Finally when the phone network is restored we can contact our family to go back home.

When I am at home I learn that the noise was the explosion of AZF. Then the phone rings to announce a bad news to us. This photo has been the headlines on every newspaper, and you have certainly seen it. On this picture we can see my cousin and her two babies. This photo was taken on the bridge next to AZF. My cousin did not use to take this road. That day she took this road because she had to help somebody. When the explosion happened she was driving on the road along the factory. Her car made several rolls before crashing against the bridge. She Succeed to get out of the car with her 2 babies. In this situation the worst thing is that the journalist took the photo and published it the next day, didn’t help her. He left them there bleeding. Nobody talked about this inhuman act and I find that scandalous. For my cousin this day has been the most frightening experience of her life. She still suffers from her wound at her left thigh. The twins have received some glass on the face and, one has a scar on the cheek and the other one is myopic.

The AZF trial began on Monday February 23 rd in Toulouse. The hearings will last 4 months and will be filmed and recorded as requested by the victims' associations for history. It is the largest trial ever organized in France. It will determine who the responsible of this disaster is. For me this day reminds me a huge fear, a feeling of threat and an important

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