A Xiaomi Mi 4C caught fire while still in the pocket of the owner, was reported by a news channel in Zhejiang. The person was severely burned at the mishap. The incident happened early in the morning, when the man went out to buy something. During his walk to the store, his pants started smoking and the phone caught on fire. The accident caused third-degree burns on the person’s lower-left hip area.
Form what we can see and guess, in that pocket was only his Mi 4C. From the preliminary investigation, came out that the person sat on the floor while the phone was still in his back jean pocket. This could have caused a bent of the battery, or worse, rupturing it which might caused and the accident in the end. An investigation is still going on to determine the exact cause of the explosion.
This is not the first time a Xiaomi Phone caught fire. 900 similar cases where a phone spontaneously catches fire and explodes, have been reported till now. Xiaomi has not made any official comment on the incident, however investigations reveal that the reported cases of phones catching fire are using batteries from the same manufacturer. However, it is not clear if Xiaomi is using multiple suppliers for the Xiaomi Mi 4C batteries.
Exploding of smartphones does seem very common these days; most recently the series of incidents with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7’s batteries exploding, causing the loss of 1 billion dollar to the company. This could be the right time to give some warnings about the use of smartphones and how to take care of the batteries to prevent these kinds of incidents from happening. If your smartphone is overheating during charging or playing games, it’s very good to let the phone cool down before using it. If the phone is taking too long to cool down, you could use a very damp towel to wipe the phone lightly to cool it down. Avoid using phone in hot weather or in direct sunlight. And finally avoid over-charging the phone or using third party chargers, as they might use different voltage or apmerage which might reduce the life of the battery or worse explode.