Posted on 01/22/2013 5:59:27 AM PST by cartan
A cloud of harmless gas smelling of sweat and rotten eggs leaked out of a chemicals factory in northwest France and wafted across the English Channel as far as London on Tuesday.
The leak occurred on Monday morning at a Lubrizol France plant near Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Paris, and winds blew the invisible gas cloud south over northern France on Monday night and then up into England on Tuesday.
The fire brigade in the county of Kent, southeast of London, warned residents to keep their doors and windows closed due to a gas cloud it believed had come from France and London police said it had reports of an acrid smell in southeast London.
Lubrizol France, which makes additives for industrial lubricants and paint, said the gas was mercaptan, also known as methanethiol, a colorless additive used in natural gas because its sulphurous smell enables gas leaks to be detected.
Internal operations director Pierre-Jean Payrouse said the company was battling to plug the leak, as the cloud spread over some 350 km (220 miles), but said it might take until the evening. The cause of the leak was still unknown.
“It’s not so much a leak as a product that has decomposed, which smells very bad and which is escaping,” Payrouse told RTL radio. “An investigation is under way (into what happened) but our priority is to deal with the problem.”
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
More likely, it came from Obama’s Inauguration.
Actually yesterday’s stench crossed the Atlantic from Washington.
“I fart in your general direction!”
Are they sure it was a gas leak, and not the general French BO being blown across the channel?
Many years ago my wife visited France after spending some time in Germany. She said the first thing she noticed when she crossed the border was that things smelled worse in France than they did in Germany. I laughed and asked her what it was that smelled so bad. She didn’t know, and I’ve never been to France. But I might find out in a few years as we are making plans to visit her relatives who live in England near Dover. We then plan to take the Chunnel over to France. I’ll find out if France simply has too much bad cheese. I’ll add that my wife has a very sensitive nose and can detect bad odors far more readily than I can.
France: Many more smokers than one sees here and a lot of folks seem not to bathe or use deodorant frequently, though it is claimed that the French are better in this regard than other Europeans.
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