HP recalls laptop batteries over fire hazard

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is recalling some 70,000 batteries for notebook computers because of a fire hazard, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said on Thursday.

The CPSC said it had received two reports of the batteries catching fire due to overheating, causing minor property damage but no injuries.

It said the lithium-ion batteries being recalled were used in HP and Compaq notebook computers sold between August 2007 and March 2008 and were made in China.

The CPSC provided a list of the computer models using the batteries on its website CPSC.gov. It said HP was providing free replacement batteries.

(c) 2009 AFP