I think it's an interesting mini-topic question regardless - was the ejected rock from explosive force or a result of the collapse?
It does have some slight relevence to the topic as the vid was put forward to 'prove' that material can be ejected by a gravitational event. Its just a pity that an explosive event was used to display that. In any case nobody here has disputed that material can be ejected sideways from both kinds of events.
However, as you say, it is an interesting mini-topic. But not meriting its own thread. I will put my own 10c forward.
The mystery here is really the velocity of that rock. It sure was hauling ass. If we had access to the raw vid data that velocity would be easier to compute from frame counts. Even that needs an estimation of various distances though.
Starting at that point first. I play golf and that involves much practice in distance estimates. If I was stood by the camera I would select a pitching wedge to hit a green at the base of that large tree seen near where the rock first appears. My feeble skills enable that club to send a golf ball around 50 yards, which is why I would select that club, because that was my distance estimate.
Similarly, if the green was at the base of the right hand building I would choose either a 4 or 5 iron depending on where other hazards were placed. I would then play either a full swing 5 or a 'gentle' 4 club stroke. Both -in my hands- will reach around 150 yards, which is what my estimate is.
As a check there is a rudimentary geometry exercise we can do. The man in the white shirt must be around 6' tall. The tall tree must be around 35' high, and the buildings have to be around 85' high. If you look at the vid that mans eyeline looking at the tall tree would seem to coincide with the top of the building.
Draw a base line of 450' and then a vertical on the left side of 6' and a vertical on the right side of 85'. At 150 ' from the left side draw a vertical 35'. You can then join the top of each vertical with a line- representing that mans eyeline. ( or near enough). This shows that all the guestimates are very close to being accurate. The trees are around 150' feet away and the buildings around 450' - as my golf experience estimated.
Now we have a kind of base to estimate the speed of that rock. Absent accurate timings it is still nowhere near exact, but lets give it a go. The explosion at the base of the right hand building seems to be around mark 7 seconds. The first appearance of the rock is around mark 8 ( late) or early 9 seconds. Then it arrived to nearly decapitate that guy at around mark 10 seconds.
So, if the rock left as a direct result of the explosion it had to travel 300 feet in 2 seconds and then another 150 feet in another second. Consistent.
What speed does that represent? 150 x 60 x 60 = 540,000 feet per hour - or 102.27 mph.
Does that seem consistent with the observation per that video ? I would suggest so.
Now lets look at the claim put forward that the rock began its journey as a result of the building debris hitting the ground. What are the timings for that? Hard to determine of course but I would suggest that from observation it would seem to be late 8 seconds and early 9 seconds.
Here it gets interesting. We have a direct observation of the rock's flight from its first appearance to impact. And we can see that it covered the distance from the trees in around 1 second or 100 mph approx. That means that it had to cover the
first 300 feet in another one second in order to have only left when the building hit the ground. Conflict right there.
To have left on bullding impact to the ground it would have to move over the first 300' at double the velocity that it continued once it was observed. (We are into quantum physics now and shades of the 'double slit' experiment ) - ( Observation altering velocity)
My conclusion is that the first hypothesis fits both the observations and the calculations. ie. the rock was launched by an explosive event , travelled 450' at an average velocity of 100 mph and damned near killed a guy.
Can we now close down this interesting sub-topic ?