Upcoming Diaper Shortage Means Things Are About to Get Very Messy

Well, this stinks.

Following an explosion at a chemical factory in Japan, the world may be facing a looming (and smelly) crisis: a diaper shortage. The Nippon Shokubai Company's plant in Himeji is a leading producer of acrylic acid, a main component in disposable diapers. Over the weekend, it went boom.

The explosion killed one firefighter and injured more than 30 other emergency personnel. It was such a large explosion that at least one bystander said it felt like an earthquake. The cause of the incident remains unknown.

Acrylic acid is a super-absorbent polymer that allows diapers to absorb 50 times their own weight of liquid.

[Telegraph]