Réfutation de l’hypothèse sismo-acoustique invoquée pour le double bang de la catastrophe de Toulouse (France) du 21 septembre 2001

Abstract: According to a paper by Souriau et al., published in 2002, the first bang heard by the population of Toulouse during the blast at the AZF plant, on 21st September 2001 should be the seismo-acoustic wave produced by the AZF explosion, i.e. an indirect wave generated as a transmission wave through the Earth''s crust (i.e., a seismic wave) and a refraction wave (i.e., an acoustic wave). We apply the criterion proposed by the authors in favour of a seismo-acoustic wave and show that the latter cannot be validated according to the data corresponding to the first bang. On the other hand, we show that the AZF seismo-acoustic wave has been perceived by only a few witnesses, but as rumblings and not as a bang. Consequently, AZF seismo-acoustic wave and first bang are two phenomena to be clearly discriminated. In particular, the source of the first bang is totally independent of that of the AZF explosion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]