“There was agitation but it was calm,” says Mathieu, accustomed to the base of the base, in Lorient, to have a platform boat. It is nearly 6 pm, this Saturday, July 26, 2025, and the 49 -year -old man walks around K3 when he sees, in the distance, on one of the pontoons reserved for offshore racing boats, “men in diving combination” and boats by their side. One is a semi-rigid. Black and blue, it seems to work perfectly. And yet, a few minutes before, its engine exploded, at the entrance to the Lorient harbor, 500 meters from the coast.
The boat belongs to the Les Venets underwater diving club. (The telegram/Isabelle Demangeat)
Two people projected out of the boat
“The causes and the origin of the explosion are still indeterminate,” said the head of the Lorient firefighters. But the latter, whether he compares to “a blast” or a “shock wave”, was not followed by fire.
On board the boat: fourteen people, divers from the underwater club Vannetais les Venets. Two of them are then projected out of the boat, then brought back on board before the semi-rigid was towed by a boating. No serious injuries, only five “slightly injured” divers who were transported to the Brittany South Brittany hospital (GHBS), in Lorient.
The semi-rigid carrying fourteen divers then accosted at the port of the base, in Lorient. (The telegram/Isabelle Demangeat)
Many victims deployed
Because, after calm, it was many emergency vehicles that Mathieu was able to observe. “Trucks with beacons,” he explains. Given the number of people present on the boat, the Novi plan (numerous victims) was thus triggered. Seventeen machines, including seven rescue vehicles and victims assistance (VSAV), were mobilized by the firefighters in western Morbihan. The National Society for Sea Rescue (SNSM), the SMUR, the Lorient police as well as the maritime gendarmerie also went there. This opened an investigation to determine the causes of the explosion.
