South Korea Data-Center Fire Disrupts 647 Services

A fire sparked by a lithium‑ion UPS battery during maintenance at the state‑run National Information Resources Service data centre in Daejeon disabled hundreds of government systems, took nearly a day to extinguish, and prompted evacuation and suspension of operations to protect servers. The blaze knocked 647 administrative and security systems offline — including Government24, postal banking, mobile ID, customs, police, fire and other emergency and legal platforms — and one worker suffered first‑degree burns. Days later authorities said only 46–62 services had been restored, many network and security devices and a key cooling unit have been reactivated, and the destroyed batteries removed. Officials aim to phase about 551 systems back online but say 96 systems were directly damaged and will take longer to restore. President Lee Jae Myung apologized, ordered urgent restorations, extended deadlines for affected citizens and pledged reforms and budget proposals to strengthen backup and emergency systems. The outage exposed heavy reliance on a single national hub, drew expert criticism over inadequate real‑time recovery and synchronization, and prompted a joint investigation into the cause and response.