Korean Government Vows To Restore Network After Data Centre Fire Caused By Battery Explosion

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published September 27, 2025 | 07:00 PM

SEOUL, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 27th Sep, 2025) The Korean government on Saturday pledged to make every effort to restore the administrative computer network that was disrupted by a fire at the central state data centre, which was caused by a battery explosion, Yonhap reported.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety held a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) and decided to focus on repairing the affected network equipment by Sunday to normalise key services directly tied to people's daily lives and the economy.

"We apologise for causing great inconvenience to the public by delaying civil applications and the issuance of certificates," Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung said, as quoted by Yonhap.

The CDSCH said that when the fire broke out at the National Information Resources Service in the central city of Daejeon, the government shut down 647 online systems, including the mobile identification system and online postal service.

Of the affected services, 436 are public programmes and 211 are intranet systems for government officials. A total of 96 systems were directly damaged by the fire, it added.

The blaze began at 8:15 p.m. Friday when a lithium-ion battery exploded in a computer room on the fifth floor of the Daejeon center.

Officials said the explosion occurred in one of the center's uninterruptible power supply batteries while workers were disconnecting them from servers to relocate them to the basement.

The flames were completely extinguished at 6 p.m. Saturday, some 22 hours after the outbreak, authorities said.