Kerala child dies as phone blows up face, Xiaomi says 'not clear if...'

An 8-year-old girl lost her life when she was watching a video on smartphone that exploded near her face. The tragic incident took place in Kerala’s Thrissur. The young girl named Adithyasree was a student in Class 3 of Tiruvilvamala’s Christ New Life School. She was watching videos on smartphone when it suddenly exploded around 10:30 PM on Monday. According to the report, the girl’s grandmother was sitting in another room when she heard the loud blast and rushed to check. Adithyasree succumbed as her face was disfigured after the explosion and she was found lying in a pool of blood.

As per the investigations, the smartphone exploded likely due to extensive use. The family has revealed that the phone was bought by Adithyasree’s uncle around three years ago and he got the phone’s battery replacement sometime ago from the same shop. As of now, it is unclear whether the battery used to power the device was a genuine product or not. Although it is difficult to identify the name of the brand from the exploded device, many reports on social media claim that it was a Xiaomi smartphone. Following the incident, the smartphone manufacturer has also issued a statement, expressing its concern on the tragic accident.

A Xiaomi India spokesperson has said that “At Xiaomi India, customer safety is of utmost importance, and we take such matters extremely seriously. We stand with the family in this time of difficulty and hope to support them in any way possible. There are some reports that state this is a Redmi phone which is yet to be established, given the matter is currently being investigated. We will work with the authorities to determine the actual cause of the incident and will support them in any required manner”.

If the reports claiming it to be a Xiaomi phone are true, then it will be the second such incident within a year. The main reason a smartphone may explode or catch fire is overheating. There are several reasons due to which smartphones can overheat. Smartphones can easily heat up after extreme gaming and muti-tasking. The ability to handle extreme usage depends on the chipset that is powering the smartphone. Although manufacturers offer several cooling mechanisms to keep the processor from overheating, one should avoid using smartphones for long durations without any intervals.

Overnight charging or using the smartphone while charging can also lead to overheating and as mentioned earlier, overheating is one of the primary reasons due to which a smartphone explodes and catches fire. Overnight chagrin can also damage the battery in the long run which can result in explosion due to short-circuit.