On monday November 9, 1992 at 5:20 a.m. a major U. V.C.E, occured in the Gas Plant of the TOTAL refinery's Fluid Catalytic Cracking unit at La Mede, France. The origin was a 25 cm2 break in the 8" by-pass of the absorber stripper column cooler; an amount of about 15 tons of LPG and light naphtha was released within 10 minutes, covering an area of 14000m2 including Gas Plant, cryogenic, propene and Merox units before being ignited on the FCC main furnace.