People are always a little excited when things like this happen.
Also, whenever there is a catastrophic failure there are lots of sounds and small events, some of which look like explosions. Remember all the people who swore they heard explosions with the World Trade? As things give, they “bang” - my guess is it is easy to confuse with an explosion.
No need to jump to conclusions here. Buildings and bridges are not new to sudden, catastrophic failure. This is just as easily an engineering problem.
“Also, whenever there is a catastrophic failure there are lots of sounds and small events, some of which look like explosions.”
Yes, in fact many times in a bldg. when the field bolt connections are slip critical, and they slip into a bearing condition, which causes a very loud bang. Big steel structures make very loud noises when they fail.