[The Chosun Ilbo, November 29 2007] Exploding Phone Kills N.Chungcheong Man

A man in his 30s was killed on Wednesday in what is believed to have been a mobile-phone explosion. Around 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, a worker at a quarry in Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong Province found the backhoe operator identified as Seo (33). The worker told police he found Seo lying beside his backhoe and bleeding from the nose. His phone was on fire. The worker put out the fire and called emergency services. Seo was taken to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.

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Seo used the latest slide phone released by a leading Korean electronics company in April. In June, the press reported that a 22-year-old welder was killed at a steel mill in Lanchow in China’s Gansu Province after the mobile phone in his chest pocket exploded. This was the first time a mobile-phone explosion has killed a person in Korea.

The maker of the phone in question says the gadget was equipped with a lithium polymer battery, an improved and safer version of lithium-ion batteries, adding there had been no reports on explosions of the new batteries before.