You know the situation, but for other that might be unaware, that was horrible.
You might not want to watch it.
It was a large bike battery in that closed elevator confined space however.
No explosion, just a sudden large very hot flash fire.
It burned that man so fast and there was nothing he could do.
These explosions were not due to lithium batteries.
However who knows what else was in it. Anyone near these explosions may have been “marked” and the cells and connections are now more evident.
Lithium batteries absolutely can explode.
Although, I guess it depends on where you draw the line between “burning extremely fast” and exploding. But I’ve seen a solar powered device that overcharged a very hot (sitting in the Sun at 120 in Hobbes NM) battery explode (or burn so fast) it knocked out windows. I’d call that an explosion.
No clue if this was the battery alone or if they put on a little postage stamp of a helper. There’s plenty of possibilities.