Passengers Evacuated at Dhoby Ghaut After a Person’s Honor (Under Huawei), Not Oppo, Smartphone Emitted Smoke

There are many tales analogous to the David and Goliath story.

Of how things small and insignificant subduing huge and mighty foes in what seems to be an improbable or impossible task.

Such was the case yesterday of one man’s Honor stopping a train in its literal tracks.

Honor by Huawei

If you’re not confused, I applaud your clarity in thought and how well-informed you are.

If you are, I don’t blame you -but do let me explain.

According to Straits Times, “A train at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station was evacuated on Tuesday (Feb 19), after smoke was spotted coming out of a passenger’s mobile phone.”

The phone in question is believed to be an Honor, smartphone brand under Huawei.

Perhaps not this particular model, but certainly an Honor phone according to sources.

A ST reader who declined to be named said “he was in the train and standing about 1m away from the owner of the phone, when smoke starting coming out of the device, which was in the man’s back pocket.”

According to the reader:

“The phone owner was just chatting with another two friends. But suddenly, he struggled to retrieve his phone, before throwing it down onto the floor,” he said. “Thick smoke was coming out from the phone, but there was no fire.”

The reader added that the phone caused a hole in the man’s back pocket and left soot on his hands.

Wah, play so big.

According to Mr Larry Yeung, the train stopped on the tracks for a minute or so before a request was made over the intercom requesting for all passengers to alight with the help of two station staff.

He added that the platform was “very crowded” and that the subsequent train came about 11 minutes later.

Mr Leung quipped: “I was lucky to get on the next train, but I saw that some didn’t manage to get in.”

Not Oppo

If you were on Facebook yesterday and saw people dissing Oppo for causing a train disruption, your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you.

In the earlier version of the Straits Times report, it was mentioned that it could have been an Oppo phone. But of course we now know it’s not the honorable Oppo.

It has never been Oppo and will never be.

The perils of a Smartphone

How times have changed indeed.

Back when I first got my first phone ever, the trusty Nokia 3210 which The Guardian reckons was the best phone ever made, the only ever threat a mobile phone then possessed was the of the possibility of blunt-force trauma if one ever dropped on your feet.

While phones are sleeker, smarter and come with more function nowadays, the apparent drawbacks of a way-shorter battery life and fragile screens is is a mainstay in most of our lives and pockets.

However, those don’t compare to the perils that their electrical components bring.

It appears that spontaneous combustion and electrical shock are just some of the unsaid features of a smartphone.

While one 24 years old man died of electrical shock while charging his phone just a few years back, another video showing a combusting phone made the internet rounds in 2017.

Though the charger and battery used were of dubious origins in each case respectively, and no doubt contributed to the unfortunate incidents, it is a known fact that smartphone these days are prone to over-heating and have been known to be explosive to a fault.

Just ask Samsung about their Galaxy Note 7.

That said, there’s surely no way of returning to the days of our analogue phone.

Doing so would be like asking humankind to return to eating purely lean meat and fishes, nuts and seeds, fruits and vegetable, without turning to processed foods, nor farmed and cultivated food like dairy products and/or crops…

Oh wait, that’s the popular and in-fad Paleo diet isn’t it…..?