Here is another link showing the sequence of explosions vividly. It actually looks like 3 specific explosions. The 1st video was taken by people who sound like Americans. When the first explosion occurs, they are laughing and joking and one says maybe a gas station. Then the second huge explosion occurs and the group gets serious and shocked, then what appears to be a third huge explosion occurs, and they decide they better go downstairs. The reports have all said 2 explosions, but this certainly looks like a third one with the talking continuing in the background from the 2nd to 3rd one so I don’t see how this could have been a repeat of the 2nd one. Also you see individual flaming parts raining outward like a fireworks explosion. Other videos then follow including one describing flouting of rules regarding building safe distances from potentially hazardous industrial sites and descriptions of known chemicals at site. These included calcium chloride which burns when touched with water and emits acetylene gas, and a huge amount of a chemical with cyanide (700 tons I think they said). The Chinese have been very hush, hush about air pollution, and the next video which was in Chinese only mentioned chemicals not including cyanide. A following video shot from helicopter shows the vast area of devastation including masses of metal shipping container washed up against a high rise like pebbles at a beach after a storm. Another one shows a large water filled crater, perhaps 400 or more feet in diameter, based on the probable 40 feet length of shipping containers nearby. Death toll up to 57, with over 700 hospitalized with over 50 critical or serious. At least 15 firefighters killed and 1,000 responding. Since the explosions happened around 11 pm, the daylight shots are long after the initial explosions.
Sounds like although it probably was not a nuclear explosion, it was more devastating than a Davey Crocket bomb (20t). No radiation from a ground burst is a good thing.
I think you are confusing calcium chloride with calcium carbide.
However, even calcium carbide does not "burn when touched by water." It dissolves rather benignly, except for the acetylene gas produced, which then can go "bang" if ignited. This is how a "carbide cannon" works. Many moons ago, I had one. :-)
Now, calcium chloride does dissolve in exothermic fashion, so, maybe if stores of both chemicals are in close proximity and water is added... Do we have a chemical engineer on FR who can enlighten us further?