TALLINN - A nonoriginal mobile phone battery exploded in Tampere, Finland, on Nov. 19, the daily Helsingin Sanomat reported.
Two 13-year-old girls and one of the other girl's parents barely had time to flee the room before the battery from Jannika Lahtinen's cell phone exploded on a table, according to the report.
The explosion blew a hole the size of a bullet in the wall of the room and blackened the room's wall. The battery itself disintegrated into small pieces.
According to the two girls, the battery's surface melted and bubbled just prior to the explosion. Lahtinen had removed the battery from the handset after it began to heat up oddly and its shape began to change from the normal rectangle into an hour glass.
The battery model was a CE-Akku Finland 06/2003 P. The letter P is significant, as it reveals the exact manufacturer of the battery. No other batteries in the 06/2003 series have had problems.
The Safety Technology Authority (TUKES) said it would publish a list of potentially dangerous nonoriginal mobile phone batteries later in the week.
According to a TUKES representative, the battery in Tampere short-circuited and the insulation materials did not work properly.
The battery's parts are made in China, and the batteries are assembled in Taiwan.
Tommi Jarvinen, head of the battery's importer Bat.Power, said he attempted to collect all faulty batteries from the market in April.
However, 500 batteries remain at large.
An explosion in Lahti a couple of weeks ago, which first called TUKES's attention to the matter, was caused by a battery from the same series.
The importer now plans to place an ad in newspapers warning of the explosion hazard. Jarvinen said that all known explosions had occurred with Nokia 3310 and 3330 handsets. Some other battery models imported by Bat.Power have already been listed on the TUKES Web site as potentially having quality problems.
The Belgian consumer organization Test Aankoop, which recently reported that Nokia's original batteries have deficient short-circuit protection, repeated its tests with batteries that were confirmed to be original. No problems were found in the tests.
