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South Korea faced major digital disruption on Saturday after a fire at a state-run data centre forced the suspension of hundreds of government services, from postal systems to emergency communications.
The blaze, sparked late Friday night in a lithium battery unit at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon — located around 150 kilometres south of Seoul — affected one of the country’s most critical IT hubs.
Citizens awoke to multiple emergency alerts warning that online post office functions were unavailable and that 119 emergency requests had to be made by phone, as video and text services were temporarily offline.
Prime Minister Kim Min-seok publicly apologised, acknowledging the scale of the disruption. “Since key national IT systems are concentrated in a single facility, extinguishing the fire proved extremely challenging,” he said. “Civil applications and document services may be delayed, and I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”
The Ministry of the Interior confirmed that as of Saturday morning, at least 647 digital services remained out of action. Among those hit were the mobile ID system, the national legal information database, and the central government petition platform.
Officials explained that the fire knocked out climate control systems, raising the risk of servers overheating. As a precaution, operations were suspended to prevent permanent damage. “Our immediate priority is restoring temperature and humidity control,” vice minister Kim Min-jae told the press. “Once stable, we will reactivate servers and move into recovery.”
This incident follows a similar disruption in 2022 when a data centre fire disabled KakaoTalk — South Korea’s most widely used messaging platform — for millions of users. That crisis led to public outcry and calls for stricter safeguards, underscoring the country’s vulnerability to IT infrastructure breakdowns.
The latest fire has reignited debate over the risks of over-centralising digital infrastructure, highlighting the urgent need for stronger backup systems to protect essential services.