Exploding batteries are back: last Friday, the battery of an Australian readers' Nokia 6230i phone exploded and flew across the room, burning a hole in her floor.
The explosion occurred late on Friday night while the phone was charging, and nobody was present to witness the incident.
Nokia has previously warned about overheating problems with the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006.
Nokia has said in a statement that such batteries "could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge."
While it is now impossible to identify the battery model involved in the incident, the battery "dislodgement" described by Nokia fits with the description provided by the reader.
The reader, whose identity has been kept anonymous, described how the battery must have shot out of the phone, leaving the phone intact as indicated by the second photograph below. The phone was "initially sitting on the clear plastic container with the white lid while it was charging. After the explosion, it sat, as you see it, on the bench with the back cover off" she said in an e-mail interview.
Last week, a similar incident involving a Nokia phone occurred in New Zealand, according to a report on tvnz.co.nz.
1. The charred battery
Here you can see the completely destroyed phone battery. The swelling in the battery case indicates gas expansion, while the charring on the tiled floor indicates a significant amount of heat.
2. The undamaged phone
This is the phone post-explosion. The phone looks to be undamaged, which corroborates how the battery shot out of the back of the phone before burning into the floor.
3. The charred floor
This is the char mark left on the floor post-explosion.
4. The battery flew well clear of the phone
This zoomed out perspective of the char mark gives an indication of just how far the phone battery travelled from where the phone was charging.
here we go again. will phones now be banned from airplanes?