This is the moment a young girl was engulfed in a fireball after she put a hydrogen-filled balloon on a restaurant stove and it exploded in her face.

The girl and her family had gone to the hotpot restaurant in the city of Putian, Fujian Province, China, on 20th December.

While her parents looked at something on a mobile phone, the youngster climbed onto the chair and placed her hydrogen-filled balloon on top of a hot tabletop stove.

Shocking CCTV footage shows the girl’s head disappear in a tremendous flash of flame as the hydrogen ignites.

Astonishingly, she seems to survive unharmed and bursts into tears as her father runs over to check that she is okay.

According to local media, apart from some singed hair, she was otherwise unharmed but scared after the shock.

A little brother, who was off-camera at the time, fortunately, escaped being caught in the blast.

Normally children’s balloons are filled with helium which does not explode.

But hydrogen, which is highly explosive, provides greater lift and is also often used although it is generally not advised for children’s toys.