Laptop Catches Fire in Suspected Battery Explosion

A turned-off laptop computer caught fire while stored in a bag and exploded into flames a few minutes later in a hospital in Seoul, Tuesday.

The laptop, which belong to a daily newspaper reporter, ignited at Bestian Medical Center in southern Seoul, Tuesday afternoon. Police and the fire department gathered the remains for investigation, said the laptop's maker, requesting anonymity until the reason for the combustion is uncovered.

The incident was recorded on a camcorder by fellow journalists at the scene, and the clip was released on the Internet a few hours later. The reporters were visiting the hospital to meet survivors of a warehouse fire, which killed 40 and injured 17 in Icheon, Monday.

``We do not have the laptop, so it will be wise to wait until the investigation finds out what happened,'' a spokesperson for the firm said.

No one was injured during the incident, as the laptop was immediately taken to the rooftop of the building once it started to give off smoke in the reporter's bag. There it exploded with a cracking noise, sending debris several meters out, the video clip showed. The fire was put out using an extinguisher.

The manufacturer of the battery also was not identified immediately.

There have been several cases of laptop computers using lithium-ion batteries catching fire, and several global makers have recalled defective or possibly defective batteries. The most famous recall took place in 2006 at Sony. According to CNN, the recall of 10 million laptop batteries cost the Japanese maker some $429 million.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr