LG laptop goes up in flames

Journalist on the scene in less than seconds

By James Sherwood • Get more from this author

9th January 2008 14:03 GMT

A journalist was awoken by a hot news story yesterday: the realisation that his LG Electronics laptop had just exploded.

The so-far anonymous journalist had apparently put the laptop into sleep mode. Unfortunately, the device was not ready for bye-bye and instead blew itself sky high, belching smoke and flames.

The specific reason behind the explosion is still unknown, but the laptop did contain a lithium-ion battery from Korean chemicals company LG Chem Ltd.

A spokeswoman for LG Chem told Bloomberg.com that it has already asked a third party to investigate the matter. LG Electronics is also thought to be looking into the incident.

The news of yet another exploding laptop is bad news for the industry, which is only starting to put similar high-profile incidents behind it. In September last year a Dell laptop burst into flames in China, despite the PC giant earlier recalling 4.1m laptop batteries over fears that they could catch fire.

Toshiba also announced in June last year that a laptop battery pack made by Sony had self-immolated, although Toshiba decided to keep details of that blaze very quiet.®