As so many teenagers do, 14-year-old Alua Asetkyzy Abzalbek went to sleep listening to music with her phone right next to her head on her pillow, and plugged it in to charge overnight.
She never woke up.
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The family of the Kazakhstani teen found her dead in her bed the next morning, with the charred remains of her phone next to her.
Authorities believe that her phone exploded in the night, causing severe head injuries that killed her instantly, The Sun reported.
Police forensics experts confirmed that the phone had been plugged in to charge and overheated, causing it to explode.
The family called paramedics when they found Alua, but they said she had been dead for some time and could not be resuscitated.
Police have not disclosed the brand of phone Alua used, however.
Devastated family and friends have called Alua’s passing a “tragic accident.”
“I still cannot believe it,” Alua’s best friend, 15-year-old Ayashan Dolasheva, posted on social media. “You were the best. We have been together since childhood. It is so hard for me without you. I miss you so much. You have left me forever.”
Alua is not the first to be killed by an exploding cell phone.
In 2018, India’s Uma Oram, 18, was killed when her phone’s battery exploded as she spoke with a relative, Metro reported. It too was plugged in to charge at the time and overheated.
Also in 2018, Cradle Fund CEO Nazrin Hassan died due to a phone explosion.
As the New York Post reported, Hassan’s phone exploded and caught fire, likely incapacitating him and causing a larger fire that he was unable to escape from.
h/t: The Sun
