The only saving grace for these guys is (I know it doesn't seem like much right now, but...)
NO:
gamma rays
x-rays
lingering heavy particles (alpha, beta)
nor days of fallout. (this one is of real concern as there has never been this scenario in an arid region) How long would it hang in the atmosphere and how far would it travel and still be lethal? A lot of models have been done to study this.
For the citizens, there was no significant generation of thermal energy here,pretty much all kinetic. Other wise the entire blast zone would still be on fire as would most of the city.
The city as a whole is very fortunate that this material was stored as it was, bagged at ground level in a soft shelled warehouse. Had it been bulk stored in something like those grain silos... Whole different ball game.
