The Netherlands, a Small European Nation, Has a Big Explosions Problem

Really interesting. I am in the Netherlands on holiday with my family. Two nights ago there were a series of explosions that sounded like very large fireworks or military pratice of some type. We were doing many searches to see it it was some holiday, but could not find anything.

> For years, the blasts had been linked to organized crime and drug traffickers using hand grenades to settle scores.

This seems... _not likely to be effective_, honestly.

Can't help thinking of the Monty Python sketch about gangsters (a Kray twins parody iirc) using increasingly absurd weapons, culminating in nukes.

EDIT: Oh, read on. Confusingly written article; the tl;dr is that while it was traditionally organised crime using hand grenades, it is now just random people using big fireworks in petty disputes. Utterly bizarre.

> In Vlaardingen, a Rotterdam suburb, a plumber was targeted with explosive devices at least 28 times over many months. The explosions ended in August 2024, when the plumber died of what the Dutch news media described as a heart issue. The people behind the bombings were never identified or arrested.

I mean, what. (Given that it seems to be about 1000-1500 incidents per year nationwide, that plumber was likely the target of _over 1% of all of this_.)