Artillery barrel failed? Only thing making sense to me from that excerpt.
I was wondering if it might have been a negligent (or deliberate) discharge of a rifle in a concrete bunker of some sort. There could possibly be several injuries from a ricocheting bullet and/or concrete fragments, and hearing damage would be likely for anyone in there.
No point speculating from so little information, though, and I’m not going to click on bbc.com to find out more.
My guess is a hot machine gun barrel caused a runaway chain fire, operator either lost control or the barrel shattered to pieces.
Rested his chin on the suppressor of his weapon and it unexpectedly fired? Yeah sure a trained soldier rests his chin on the barrel of a loaded weapon that is so poorly designed that it fires on it’s own or.........suicide.