A fire caused by a lithium-ion battery explosion at a key government data center in South Korea has knocked more than 600 essential services offline, disrupting daily life across the highly digitized nation.
The incident, which began Friday night at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) facility in Daejeon, has affected systems for postal banking, mobile identification, tax collection, and emergency services.
The blaze started around 8:20 PM local time when a disconnected battery exploded during relocation work. The explosion triggered a “thermal runaway,” generating intense heat that complicated firefighting efforts for nearly 10 hours.
To prevent server overheating and further damage, authorities took preemptive measures and shut down all 647 government IT systems housed in the Daejeon center. The fire was fully extinguished by Saturday evening, but the heat in the server room delayed immediate restoration work.
The nationwide outage crippled essential public services. Mobile identification systems used in place of physical IDs became inaccessible, affecting travelers at airports.
The national postal service’s banking functions collapsed, blocking card payments and money transfers, while emergency services lost critical location-tracking capabilities for the 119 rescue system. Government email networks and the national legal database also went dark.
South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety is leading recovery efforts, prioritizing services based on public safety and economic impact.
By Monday, Safety Minister Yun Hojung confirmed that 46 services had been restored, including the main public services portal, Government24, and parts of the Korea Post’s financial systems.
However, authorities stated that 96 of the systems directly impacted by the fire will be more difficult to restart, and a full recovery timeline remains uncertain. One worker sustained first-degree burns in the incident.
Prime Minister Kim Min-seok issued a public apology for the disruption, acknowledging the vulnerabilities exposed by concentrating critical systems in a single facility.
In response to the crisis, President Lee Jae Myung has ordered a “significant improvement” in the security of government systems to prevent future outages.
This incident is the second major data center fire in South Korea in three years, following a 2022 blaze that disrupted the popular KakaoTalk messaging app for 50 million users.
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