Blaze hits grain silos in French port of La Rochelle

A fire broke out at grain silos in the French Atlantic port of La Rochelle on Thursday, crippling operations at one of France’s largest grain export terminals.

Local authorities said the blaze, which started on a conveyor belt at around 08.00 hrs local time, engulfed four grain silos operated by Sica Atlantique.

More than 100 firefighters managed to bring the fire under control before it reached compartments containing stored grain.

Staff of the silo operator and neighbouring companies in the terminal were evacuated and no injuries were reported.

France is the EU’s biggest grain producer and La Rochelle claims second place in exports, mostly to the Maghreb, the Middle East and West Africa. Cereals and oilseeds amounted to nearly 4m tons or 42% of the port’s total traffic in 2022.

The incident occurred just a few days after an explosion near grain silos at the Turkish port of Derince injured 12 people.