South Korea: 62 online public services restored after outage caused by national data centre fire
South Korea has started getting its online government services back up and running after a major fire knocked out hundreds of systems. By Monday noon, 62 out of 647 affected public administration platforms were restored, including key ones like the main government portal GOV.KR and the banking services from Korea Post.
The trouble began Friday when a fire broke out at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul. Officials say the blaze started from a lithium-ion battery explosion in a server room on the fifth floor. Firefighters fully put it out by Saturday evening, roughly 22 hours later.
Among the newly restored services are the interior ministry’s integrated public service management system and resident registration system, plus the science ministry’s postal and logistics setup. But the government-wide intranet, called the Onnara System, remains down. That means disruptions for everything from policy decisions to buying work supplies and services.
Take the industry ministry, for example—they’re handling U.S. tariff negotiations and now have to book flights and hotels the old-fashioned way, with paper forms instead of quick electronic approvals.
The government is focusing on fixing services that impact people’s safety and daily economic life first, especially as local offices reopen after the weekend. Still, many admin tasks could face delays. For instance, while you can apply for the second round of government consumption coupons online, the site for filing civil complaints is offline. Folks need to head to their local community service center instead. Even nationwide cremation bookings are hit, so people must reach out directly to crematoriums by phone or online.
Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung apologized deeply during a meeting in Sejong, standing up to bow and saying, “I deeply apologize for causing great inconvenience to the people through this disorder.” He noted that 96 systems destroyed in the fire won’t come back right away, but the team plans to move them to a cloud setup at NIRS’s branch in Daegu and find quick alternatives.
Vice Interior Minister Kim Min-jae added during a press briefing that the relocation and full restoration could take about four weeks.
President Lee Jae Myung also said sorry to the nation on Sunday, pointing out the “great inconvenience and anxiety” from the South Korea data fire. He urged officials to speed things up before the Chuseok holiday, when postal, delivery, and financial services see a big surge in use.
Police have launched an investigation with about 20 officers, including three experts on lithium-ion batteries, to pinpoint the fire’s cause. NIRS officials say the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) batteries involved passed recent tests but were over their 10-year lifespan, with replacement recommended. They were being moved to the basement away from servers at the time, not swapped out, contrary to some reports.
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