You've probably all heard about the massive explosions that took place in China a few days ago.
Here is an image of the (now former) factory, it literally looks like a bomb site now ...



And that's just the immediate blast radius. Apparently after the initial explosions, homes over a kilometre away suffered damage.
There were firefighters that were called to the site just prior to the explosion.

Mark

There were further explosions today if I heard the news correctly, and talk of particularly nasty air-chemical pollution.



That's on it's own level of 'not giving a fcuk'

Chemicals that become unstable in the presence of water, in and of themselves, aren't necessarily a problem with correct storage and appropriate notification of fire fighting personnel but obviously something went catastrophically wrong here. Unfortunately the only people who knew what triggered the blasts have probably been vaporised by the self same explosions. Unless they've got off-site CCTV (and I'm not talking about the national broadcaster there) footage it's extremely unlikely we'll ever know what triggered the blast.

Having said that, the company appear to have been breaking the law rather significantly in terms of the quantities they were storing - Clickety.

Is it just me or should said chemicals not have been anywhere near a port considering what else was stored with them?

Thinking locally (harbour), there's restrictions on all sorts. Oh, and take a wild guess which country is interested in buying it from our greedy politicians?