Collège Charles-III closed as precaution following chlorine fumes incident

All being well, the school should re-open on Monday morning. 

After opening as normal yesterday, Thursday 8 February, the Government decided, as a precautionary measure, to close the middle school on Avenue de l’Annonciade for a series of additional analyses and tests by an approved independent body following the incident that took place on Wednesday morning, 7 February. According to initial reports, the accident was caused by a mixture of chemicals in the pool’s equipment room during maintenance work.

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While “all the toxicity readings taken on several occasions throughout the school have been negative,” and “in the absence of objective health and medical indicators that might suggest contamination of the school’s facilities,” the authorities prefer to err on the side of caution, particularly as several pupils were indisposed on Thursday.

Symptoms caused by situational anxiety

“A member of staff fainted, witnessed by a number of children. By a ripple effect, more and more pupils came forward and the phenomenon gathered pace during the day,” explained Christophe Robino, Minister for Health and Social Affairs at a crisis meeting, adding that “many of the symptoms are probably caused by situational anxiety.”

As a reminder, Wednesday’s incident led to the evacuation of 400 to 600 people and the confinement of pupils and staff to another part of the school. 56 people, suffering from irritation symptoms or breathing issues, were checked out on Wednesday by firefighters on site, and ten of them were taken to the CHPG. They were able to be discharged quickly.

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