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Notes -
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by human incompetence. Unfortunately, industrial explosions are rather common (see r/CatastropicFailure for proof). I imagine this is another industrial accident rather than some sort of hostile attack.
My friend is an industrial welder, he's told me our town has multiple large chemical plants which are basically bombs ready to explode.
On a tangent, the EPA kind-of expects some of this at scale, and requires environmental standby trusts. While Noxious Chemical Co., Inc. is operating its plant making substances that for-the-love-of-God will hopefully never leak out, it has to put money aside in a trust that it can’t unilaterally withdraw without the EPA’s joint consent.
This way, if there’s a catastrophic explosion loosing horrid material at its plant, Noxious Chemical Co. can’t just file Chapter 7 and leave the rest of society solely responsible for the cost of cleanup.
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