Roach raze

Because of previous cases of phone batteries catching fire or exploding, airlines have banned the charging of gadgets using a powerbank during flights as a safety precaution.

The ban, however, did not prevent a lithium battery fire aboard an Air China flight on 18 October.

Flight CA139 from Hangzhou, China to Incheon, South Korea was forced to divert and make an emergency landing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport when “a lithium battery in a passenger’s carry-on luggage stored in the overhead compartment spontaneously ignited,” the airline said, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP).

No one was injured as the crew and some passengers quickly put out the fire.

Meanwhile, the arrest of a young woman from Osan, South Korea was sought by local police after she caused a fire at her apartment on 20 October.

The woman was liable for the death of a neighbor and injuries to several other people who inhaled smoke from the fire.

The fatality, a 30-year-old mother, fell from the window of her fifth floor apartment while climbing to a neighbor’s window just a meter away in an adjacent building, where her baby and husband had safely evacuated, reports say.

The victim died in a hospital hours later due to the injuries she suffered from the fall.

The fire erupted on the second floor of the building after the woman suspect in her 20s used an improvised flame thrower to kill a cockroach, the BBC reported.

When she fired the insect sprayer with a lighter at the target, the flames burned a bed and trash prompting her to call emergency services, said the SCMP.

Blasting cockroaches with blow torches or homemade flame throwers was made popular by videos on social media, according to the BBC.

Firefighters put out the fire within 40 minutes, according to SCMP.