why splitting a tiny particle can cause such a devastating blast
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The energies associated with atomic nuclei are about a million times as much as the energies associated with the electrons in chemical bonds. So any process altering atomic nuclei (e.g., radioactive decay) will involve about a million times as much energy as a similar process that alters chemical bonding (e.g., the bottle of hydrogen peroxide in your medicine cabinet slowly degrading)
Splitting one heavy atom releases about as much energy as burning a million atoms of combustible fuel. That’s about a nanogram of fuel, which weighs the same amount as a typical human cell. It’s almost no energy. Uranium atoms split occasionally on their own, and it’s not an issue unless you wear a uranium necklace or eat a uranium sandwich or something similarly ridiculous. (Also, uranium is more poisonous than lead. A uranium sandwich would kill you by heavy metal poisoning faster than it killed you by being radioactive.)
A nuclear bomb is a machine that makes multiple pounds of uranium (or plutonium) atoms split all at once. That releases as much energy as millions of pounds of explosives. Setting off ten million pounds of TNT would make a devastating blast too. But you don’t get that sort of blast without a sophisticated machine to make all the uranium or TNT go off at once.
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