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Scores Injured In Paris Gas Blast

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

PARIS (Worthy News) – Parts of central Paris seemed a warzone late Wednesday after a natural gas explosion sparked a blaze in buildings injuring scores of people.

Authorities said at least 37 people were hurt, four of them in critical condition, following the blast in the heart of the French capital’s Latin Quarter.

Many of the injured were hit by the force of the explosion and by debris, according to police investigators. Rescue workers still searched for survivors late Wednesday.

The circumstances surrounding the gas explosion at the building at Rue Saint-Jacques street were not immediately known.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said the building housed a private school, the Paris American Academy. The school was founded in 1965 and teaches fashion design, interior design, fine arts, and creative writing.

The Paris prosecutor opened an investigation into “aggravated involuntary injury,” and the inquiry would examine whether the explosion stemmed from a suspected violation of safety rules.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said investigators would seek to “determine whether or not there was a failure to respect a rule or individual imprudence that led to the explosion.”

ANXIOUS SURVIVORS

Yet the investigation did little to ease the shock of survivors. Rahman Oliur was anxiously waiting at a corner of the Parisian street where the blast blew up the front of his bazaar.

“The shop exploded. It felt like it was a bomb, an attack,” Oliur, 27, told reporters.

He was still shaken by the explosion that he said miraculously left him unscathed. “If I had been closer to the window, I would not have made it.”

The explosion-ridden Rue Saint-Jacques street leads from the Notre Dame, famed
the medieval Catholic cathedral, to the Sorbonne University and Val-de-Grâce military hospital.

It is also a few blocks from the popular Jardin du Luxembourg area, usually packed with tourists and international students in the early summer.

“I was at home writing … I thought it was a bomb,” said Monique Mosser, an art historian, adding that many of the windows in her building had been blown out by the blast’s shockwave.

NEIGHBOR KNOCKING

“A neighbor knocked on the door and told me the fire brigade asked us to evacuate as quickly as possible. I grabbed my laptop and my phone. I didn’t even think to get my medication.”

Alexis, a 23-year-old student living across from the building, heard “a huge bang,” and then his windows were blown out.

“It was super scary; there was smoke, and debris, and leaves flying,” he said. “We didn’t know if it was a terrorist attack.”

Renowned Greek-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras was among the witnesses at the scene.

“A huge noise, and the house was shaken like this,” said the 90-year-old, visibly rattled. “We thought, what is going on? We thought it could be the sky … It’s not something to laugh about.”

Local people agreed with one man telling France Info public radio: “It was shocking. It’s a disaster.”