User blog comment:Abhi09/Lords of Sea and Sky web page discussion page/@comment-3253026-20110306192821/@comment-1685631-20110306200512

Yea, you need water or else the surrounding area will blow up. Water nullifies the environment damage caused, but not the blast power. I've actually glitched the game with this effect; if tnt is blown up completely submerged, but in a dry environment, the blast still does environmental damage, and sometimes creates an "absence of water", as I like to call it. There is literally a hole in the water.