my electric range exploded!

i was cooking my ramen noodle soup last night, and BOOM! the coil shorted out, and then the place where the metal coil bends down under the range BLEW UP and sparks flew everywhere and I dumped water on the counter to put them all out in case they actually caught something!

What the hell was that!

I have never seen a random explosion like that!

Anybody with technical expertise know what happened, or have any advice about how to prevent? I'm not cooking anything until I know why my kitchen exploded in smoke and flame.