"Television footage showed the walls of the steel container bowed outward, the rear doors blown off and its contents - mostly red soda cans and other food products - strewn about like candy from a pinata.
The container was on top of a small tractor-trailer when the explosion occurred, but the driver was uninjured, said Dave Arian with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 13.
However, the container was set to be placed on a ship just below a container that had hazardous materials inside, Arian said.
"If the explosion had happened after the hazardous cargo container had been placed on top, we might have had toxic materials blanketing the longshore workers and floating all over Wilmington and San Pedro," he said.
The cause of the explosion was not clear, though officials told KABC-TV it may have been a propane tank inside the container that blew up."
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040429/APN/404290541