18-year-old Uma Oram is said to have plugged her phone to charge and was speaking to a relative when the tragedy happened at her home in the village of Kheriakani in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
Her brother said she had wanted to talk to an unnamed family member just after lunch but found that the phone, which had a Nokia logo, had run out of battery power.
‘The cell phone… was put on charging when she started talking to a relative.
‘Before we could know what exactly happened, Uma fell unconscious. She was declared dead at the hospital.’
Pictures of the incident show a damaged phone that some media sources in India say appears to look like a Nokia 5233, released in 2010.
MailOnline has requested comment from Nokia. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion.