A recent report suggests that an 18-year-old girl in India by the name of Uma Oram was killed in a Nokia 5233 explosion.
During the middle of a phone conversation, Oram plugged the device into an outline and the subsequent Nokia 5233 explosion killed the teenage girl. According to a news report, “Uma, who was knocked unconscious and suffered injuries to her hand, leg and chest, was taken to a local hospital, where she died.”
The Nokia 5233 explosion is probably due to the age of the phone. Originally launched in 2010, the phone is quite an outdated model at this point. However, as a touchscreen smartphone that uses pressure-sensitive resistive technology, it is still being sold on Amazon India for around $46.
The Nokia 5233 explosion that killed the teenage girl is unfortunate, although HMD Global, the current licensee of the Nokia brand, asserts that their company was not responsible for creating the phone that killed Uma Oram.
“While we have not been able to independently verify the facts of any of these reports, we can confirm that the mobile phone in question was not manufactured or sold by HMD Global, the new home of Nokia phones, set up in 2017 to create a new range of Nokia devices. At HMD Global, we are committed to producing high quality handsets which deliver a strong user experience and meet high customer expectations.”
At this point, it’s not clear who will be held responsible for the Nokia 5233 explosion that killed the teenage girl. Considering that the phone was made back in 2010 when the phones were still being manufactured by Nokia themselves, it doesn’t make sense to place the blame on HMD Global.
The Nokia 5233 explosion is unfortunate, but it may be a simple case of the phone being used outside of its intended lifespan. While Nokia phones originally had a reputation for being hardy and long-lived, the market has shifted to a focus on smartphones. The phone that exploded and killed a teenage girl wasn’t one of the hefty “bricks” of a phone that were released back when Nokia first started, rather being an earlier model of the touchscreen smartphone. After eight years, it’s possible that the internal workings of the phone just started to fail, causing the Nokia 5233 explosion.
Police are now currently investigating the incident and the victim’s body is now being autopsied by the Medical Examiner in the district of Kheriakani, India.