TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A misfired Army artillery round tore through a village in Changhua County during live-fire drills on Friday, damaging three homes and startling residents, though causing no injuries.
The Army stationed in Xizhou Township began firing at 9 a.m., per UDN. One round went off course and flew toward Dazhuang Village, clipping a metal awning, scraping an aluminum door, and crashing into a neighboring tree.
It then hit the ground, bounced roughly 250 meters, and grazed the brick wall of another house before coming to rest. The couple living in the first affected home, who were preparing breakfast under the awning, heard the loud impact and the sound of the aluminum door being struck.
Moments later, they noticed a neighbor’s tree had snapped. They later reviewed security footage and realized their home had been hit by a shell.
A resident of the third house said they were at home when they heard something slam into their exterior wall. They went outside and found the artillery round on the ground.
The township office said personnel from an artillery command unit immediately searched for the stray round. After recovering it, they provided compensation payments to the three households and began arranging repairs.
The unit said the incident may have been caused by insufficient propellant in the shell, resulting in an unstable trajectory. Longtime villagers noted that in earlier decades, lower-quality shells occasionally veered off course and hit homes, though such incidents have been rare in recent years.
The Army’s Education, Training and Doctrine Development Command later said a unit training at the Artillery Tests Center on the north bank of the Zhuoshui River had accidentally fired a 155 mm howitzer round into residential properties for unknown reasons. Three homes sustained partial damage, but no injuries were reported.
After receiving notice, the unit commander visited the scene to apologize and was forgiven by residents. Specialists and an investigation task force from Army Headquarters have been sent to determine the cause and strengthen risk-control measures to ensure training safety.
