According to the report, the iPhone 7 Plus in question was relatively new as it was bought a month ago. The owner claimed to have accidentally dropped it on the ground, after which the phone started to emit smoke, vibrations, and swelled up. It also ultimately exploded resulting in the damaged device you can see in the photo above.
The swelling/explosion was so severe that it bent and detached the display from the chassis of the phone. Apple has yet to comment on this but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of reports of the iPhone 7 exploding. Just a few months ago we heard another similar case, although in this particular situation, we guess being dropped must have been damaging enough to cause the battery to explode.
We’re not sure if maybe the battery was already damaged somehow and the drop was what was needed to push it over the edge, or maybe it was a drop that was hard enough to damage it. After all we’ve seen people drop their phones all the time without it exploding, so perhaps there could have been some kind of defect in this particular unit.