South Korea Races to Restore Government Services After National Data Centre Fire

Seoul, Sept 27 (VoM): South Korea is scrambling to restore critical government services after a major fire broke out at the National Information Resources Services (NIRS) data center in Daejeon, disrupting online platforms and internal networks across multiple ministries.

Officials said the fire, which started around 8:20 p.m. on Friday, was suspected to have been triggered by the explosion of a lithium-ion battery produced by LG Energy Solution during maintenance work. The blast caused a “thermal runaway,” generating extreme heat in the server room and hampering firefighting efforts.

Although the blaze was brought under control by early Saturday, more than 600 servers remain shut down to protect data integrity. Nearly 400 battery packs are being extracted from the facility as a precautionary measure.

The NIRS data center serves as a central cloud hub for South Korea’s government services and databases. Following the fire, key services, including the mobile identification system, the postal service, the government legal database, and several ministry websites, went offline. Some agencies have also reported email outages.

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok apologized to the public during a televised emergency meeting, acknowledging the inconvenience and announcing that upcoming tax payment deadlines would be postponed. “There were difficulties in containing the fire because of the concentration of critical government systems at one site,” he said.

Authorities confirmed that internal networks of some agencies in Daejeon and the nearby administrative city of Sejong were “paralyzed.” The head of the NIRS, Lee Jae-yong, said there was no clear timeline yet for full service restoration.

One person sustained a minor injury, and officials reported significant fire damage to the fifth floor of the building where the blaze began. Investigations are ongoing to determine the precise cause of the initial spark.