The theory back then is, it wasnt staged.

It was likely video from some kinda of industrial accident.

Something like this maybe?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925753508002208

On 23rd December, 2003, the LuoJia 16H well that was drilled by the No. 12 team of Chuandong Drilling Company of Sichuan Petroleum Administration burst suddenly and released a high concentration of natural gas and sulfurated hydrogen, causing a huge disaster in Gaoqiao township, Chongqing. The natural gas field, operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation, was 337 km northeast of Chongqing municipality. The well was located in a village called Xiaoyan, which lied approximately 80 km to the Kaixian country, in the northwest of Chongqing city.

At 14:29 that day, when the drilling depth reached 4049.68 m, an overflow suddenly broke out from the bottom of the well, and eventually resulted in uncontrollable blowout. The region that was mainly affected was a circular area around the well with a radius of 5 km. Five villages in Gaoqiao town including Xiaoyan, Gaowang, Pingyan, Pingle, and Yinshan suffered most severely from the blowout. Four towns (Gaoqiao, Maliu, Zhengba, and Tianhe) and 28 villages in Kaixian County were affected by this disaster (Chongqing CHEN et al., 2007).