The photograph is from an article at The Firearm Blog. More photos at the link, so be sure to check it out. The shooter (who was, thankfully, not injured beyond a minor powder burn) had handloaded the .44 Magnum cartridges; the explosion is believed to have been the result of loading a cartridge with a double-charge of powder. The shooter did not remember the type of powder, but recollected that the normal charge was 11 grains. As I and a couple other commenters observe, this is consistent with typical .44 Magnum loads with Unique. In any event, and this is a problem with many revolver cartridges with long cases including .38 Special and the magnums, it is easy to double-charge such cases because a normal powder charge takes up such a small amount of the case and so, if you get distracted at the wrong moment, you will not easily spot a discrepancy.
Of course, it is not just home handloaders that can have this problem. One of the comments reported a similar incident using a commercial "hot load".
I will note that if you want to fire "hot" loads out of a revolver, you should stick with using the over-engineered Ruger revolvers. I'm not saying that a Ruger Redhawk or Super-Redhawk would have survived a double-charge, but that they are stronger and less likely to be damaged by a "hot" load than the S&W 629.
It's not totally foolproof, but I'm a huge fan of using bulky powders for reloading. If you are loading for .357 magnum, for example, and you stick excsluively with Aliant 2400 powder, it is impossible to double charge a round because the powder will always spill over. There's simply not enough room for a double charge of 2400 in the brass case! I try to find a powder like that for other cartridges I handload. With my .45-70 I use IMR-3031 because it cannot be double charged, either, due to case volume...even though the .45-70 is one huge container!
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