A little more than three weeks after the explosion followed by a fire in the building located at 277, rue Saint-Jacques in Paris, the pile of stone blocks and beams thrown onto the street has disappeared. But loose cobblestones, broken glass and ashes still testify to the violence of the explosion which shook the neighborhood for several hundred meters around, on June 21 at 4:55 p.m.
Five buildings on the street are subject to an order prohibiting access and occupation: numbers 271, 273 and 275, and opposite, numbers 284-286-288-290 and 292-294. Some of their broken windows have been replaced with wooden panels. To avoid potential intrusions and looting, access to the area is blocked and guarded day and night by the police. The same goes for the neighboring Place Alphonse-Laveran, whose shops have not been able to reopen. Two trucks equipped with lifting platforms are still on site.
The small building at 275, adjoining the one that was blown up, is the most damaged. It still bears the traces of soot from the fire, its roof is imprisoned in a safety net, its porch and windows are buttressed by tangles of huge wooden beams. Louisa (those named by first name wish to remain anonymous) had lived there for seven years. The dapper 50-year-old wears a green dress, a gift from the owner of the Asian clothing and objects shop around the corner since ” [sa] whole life is in [son] handbag “ since she left her apartment, a quarter of an hour before the explosion of June 21. That day, his daughter, a student, was fortunately “partials in college”.
Friends, social landlords, insurers
The history and geography professor evokes with emotion the Australian Peter Carman, septuagenarian president of the Paris American Academy, the bilingual design school located at 277, rue Saint-Jacques, now reduced to nothing. “He always took off his hat when we passed each other and I bowed to him in return”, she says. Seriously burned, this gentleman wearing a ponytail, a figure in the neighborhood since the 1970s, is still in absolute emergency and plunged into an artificial coma in the hospital. According to a judicial source, another person remains in absolute emergency and 46 remain hospitalized in relative emergency. The explosion and the fire claimed two victims: a woman was found on June 27 in the rubble of the building; another succumbed to his injuries on 7 July.
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