Are iPhones, Nokia, etc safe?

I heard that people have been killed by their phones exploding and it happens more often than one would think but I read on one site that said all cases the batteries were counterfeit or the phone had been recently dropped or damaged or placed on a very hot surface. But another site said that phones are an instrument of death and cited a case where a chinese man had a phone in his chest pocket and it exploded and the shrapnel cut his carotid artery and the man bled to death. I'm scared because I have both an iPhone and a Nokia which use flammable batteries, what would happen if my phone shorted? Could it explode with fire or electrocute me?

Ya. In rare case.
last year my neighbous boy. 13.was died.
his nokia phone got exploded in his pocket.
postmortom reporded that explode lead to his private part damaged…

Well yeah an asteroid can also hit the earth.
You are going by a chinese story? I wouldn't go by anything in china, heck there most of their food is full of chemicals, nothing is safe there.

I think iPhone is safe. Because i have used iPhone since 2 years but i didn't face any problem. But i found that there are many company who sell duplicate iPhone with very cheap rate. So it could be harmful. Otherwise branded iPhone is safe and there's no problem.

I would imagine the phones are safe. Manufacturers would have to test their devices in a multitude of scenarios including the most bizzare to make sure they were safe. If they didn't they would not be allowed to sell them and the following law suits from injured parties would surely see them shut down! Kite marks and similar are all there to protect the consumer. However if you buy cheap Chinese fake then you would be asking for trouble!