Can a short circuit damage nearby devices?
The problem is you don't know what was going on when the power was shorted out, the charger could have been causing an over-voltage condition on the line and that could have blown out the notebook power supply. 

Or the charger could have been injecting current into the ground and the preferred pathway could have been through an improperly built notebook power supply (of chinese manufacture without ETL testing). 

There is no way to really tell what when on without schematics for both power supplies and how the cable was miswired.


  Can a short circuit damage nearby devices?


Apparently, yes through your account of the damaged charger, it can