It appears that
Nokia Corp.'s (NYSE: NOK) base stations are not the only piece of Finnish equipment liable to spontaneously combust, following reports of a teenage Dutchman almost losing his
manhood after a cellphone caught fire in his pocket.
According to
Dow Jones Newswires, the boy was wounded when a Nokia 7210 handset burst into flames, injuring his leg and burning a hole in the poor fella's trousers.
This is the second time the vendor has been at the center of such claims -- in August a 33 year-old woman in Amsterdam claimed to have suffered serious burns to her face when her cellphone
blew up with a bang.
The Dutch -- a people known for their
relaxed outlook on life -- aren’t taking the two incidents lightly. The national consumer board
Consumentenbond has demanded an investigation. “This is a worrying situation and we demand that Nokia initiate a thorough investigation soon to find out how this happened,” it said in a statement.
Nokia has promised to look into possible technical faults with their handset batteries but is unable to confirm rumours that its latest model will be fitted with a miniature
fire extinguisher.
Earlier this year
Unstrung reported on a series of technical issues with the performance of Nokia’s base stations within
Hutchison 3G UK Ltd.'s network. According to analysts, fire crews inspected the base stations and discovered that the operating temperature was too high (see
Hutch's Nokia Network Woes?).
— Justin Springham, Senior Editor, Europe,
Unstrung
