Several people were injured, sometimes seriously, and a building collapsed on Wednesday June 21 in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, place Alphonse-Laveran, near rue Saint-Jacques, after an explosion. According to the prefect of Paris, the explosion occurred at 4:55 p.m. at 277, rue Saint-Jacques, “inside a building which notably houses the Paris American Academy”, a bilingual design school.
After initially announcing that seven seriously injured people were in “absolute emergency”, and that nine others were more lightly affected, the PP revised its provisional toll to twenty-nine injured, four of them seriously.
The “violent” fire that broke out after the explosion is now “limited”, said Laurent Nuñez, who added that “searches are still taking place under the rubble” to find possible victims. According to the prosecution, two people were wanted in the rubble of the building.
Two “seriously destabilized” buildings
The Paris Police Prefecture (PP) asked residents to avoid the area in order to let the emergency services and the police intervene. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, as well as the public prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccuau, came on the spot. The crisis unit of the Paris City Hall has been triggered.
The 270 firefighters dispatched, who mobilized 70 machines, “prevented the spread of the fire to two adjoining buildings which were seriously destabilized by the explosion” and “were evacuated”, declared the Paris police chief, who was speaking to the press at the scene of the fire. Firefighters initially reported the collapse of two buildings. But according to police sources, only one building collapsed.
The Paris prosecutor’s office was notified at 5:15 p.m. of a fire in rue Saint-Jacques. Explosions were heard, without anything for the moment allowing to determine the origin of the disaster, explained the parquet floor, which opened an investigation for “involuntary injuries by violation of an obligation of prudence or security “. The Paris judicial police have been seized. The “first elements (…) lead us to confirm that this explosion started from the building”, declared on the spot the public prosecutor of Paris.
“Glass is falling everywhere”
The mayor of the 5th arrondissement, Florence Berthout, spoke to Le Monde of a strong explosion that would have started from the 2nd floor of the Paris American Academy. Firefighters secured the perimeter because “glass is falling everywhere,” she said.
Joined by Le Monde, the secretary general of Catholic education, whose premises are adjoining the affected building, says he heard a “strong explosion”. “The building of the Paris American Academy is on fire”, relates Philippe Delorme, affirming that those of the general secretariat of Catholic education have only suffered “minor damage”. “We were evacuated via the Val-de-Grâce hospital [which is in the immediate vicinity] because we feared another explosion,” continues Mr. Delorme.
On the spot, the perimeter is blocked from the rue des Feuillantines. Michel Denis, director of the Schola Cantorum, a private music school located next to the Paris American Academy, said he “suffered the full brunt of a violent explosion”. “I was thrown ten feet into my office, the windows blew out. I thought it was a bomb. We managed to evacuate everyone. When we got out, we saw terrible flames nearby,” he said.
“I was going home, and turning at the corner of the rue de l’Abbé-de-l’Epée, in the rue Saint-Jacques, I heard a violent explosion. I immediately saw two columns of smoke rising on each side of the street, and impressive flames,” says Carole, a young woman who lives on rue Claude-Bernard, at the junction with rue Gay-Lussac. “I thought it was an attack, people started running and I felt the ground shake. »
The young woman then returned home, from where she can see the fire trucks parked on rue Gay-Lussac, which, according to her, arrived in a few minutes. “Our neighbors have blown windows above and below our house,” she adds. “Rue des Feuillantines is covered in broken glass because the shop fronts have been blown out, and the windows of the buildings have holes in them. »
