Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. So what is this siren that sounded most of the night?

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This lasted several hours. Those who have a light sleep heard it at 2 a.m. Those, at deeper sleeponly heard it when they woke up or not at all.

On the night of November 25 to 26, 2024, a siren sounded in the port area in Tourlaville (delegated municipality of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Manche), waking up many residents. Seven short signals followed by one long blast. Some looked on social networks for an explanation as to the origin of this unbearable alarm which disrupted their sleep for a long time.

sleepless night

Incident at LM Wind Power or at the CMN, distress call, nuclear security exercise, intrusion into a building under alarm, all scenarios were imagined without however being able to determine the origin of this signal, perceived as far away as Becquet.

“It woke me up at 3 a.m. and it was impossible to go back to sleep,” testifies this Internet user living in Tourlaville in the Flamands sector. I hope it won't happen again tonight. »

“I heard the siren around 5 o’clock. At first I thought it was the sound of a truck reversing. But given the intensity and duration, I told myself it was something else. No way to get back to sleep. It stopped around 8:30 a.m..”

According to information collected from the Cherbourg border police services, notified at 8:30 a.m. of an alarm, it came from the new generation coastal maritime surveillance boat of the Maritime Gendarmerie, the Maroni, currently in fairing.

Reached by telephone, Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Audenis, second in command of the Channel North Sea maritime gendarmerie group in Cherbourg, confirmed the origin of the inconvenience.

“We are of course sorry for this alarm being triggered for all local residents who were inconvenienced. Our teams are in the process of identifying the origin of the problem and resolving it. The alarm had already gone off in the same way within the naval base itself. We are doing everything we can to ensure that this does not happen again next night and in the days to come. »

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