A Nation Offline: South Korea Data Center Fire

September 30th, 2025
Dhruv Arun

South Korea has restored 46 government services after a fire at a data center disrupted websites and digital public amenities, Safety Minister Yun Hojung said on Monday. Yun told a briefing, “We see services restoring every hour,” citing the recovery of Government24—Korea’s main portal for public services—and financial and postal systems run by Korea Post.

Organizations affected by the fire include Korea Customs, the National Police Agency and the National Fire Agency, according to the safety ministry. The blaze struck a server room at the state-run National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, halting some government sites and mobile ID functions used for internet banking.

Authorities said another 96 systems affected by the fire would be harder to restart, without giving a timetable for full restoration. Investigators suspect the fire began after a battery produced by LG Energy Solution exploded during maintenance on Friday night, damaging some servers and forcing hundreds to be shut down. LG Energy Solution declined to comment, saying the matter was under investigation.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday ordered “significant improvement” in the security of government systems, asking ministers to propose budgets for emergency systems to prevent similar outages. A battery fire on Friday at a state data center in South Korea caused a nationwide outage of hundreds of government services was extinguished, as officials scrambled over the weekend to bring those systems back online.

Ministry websites, needed to obtain official documents for various purposes, were down on Saturday. The national postal service switched to processing mail offline, threatening to create a delay in delivery. Mobile identification cards, used widely instead of physical cards, were inaccessible. Many government employees’ email services were down.

Interior Vice Minister Kim Min-jae said the blaze at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon started around 8:15 p.m. local time on Friday, when one of the lithium batteries supplying power to the facility’s computers exploded during maintenance work. The fire initially disrupted computer servers for about 70 government systems. Yet, at the risk of overheating other servers in the building, the rest of the 647 systems at the data center were shut down on Friday night during the operation to put out the fire.

The blaze was extinguished by 6 p.m. local time on Saturday, nearly 22 hours after it began. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety later revealed that 96 systems were directly damaged by the fire, up from the previously reported count of 70. About 250 of the 384 burned batteries had been removed as of Saturday evening. The Ministry of the Interior said that recovery efforts will focus on restarting systems that were not damaged by the fire, prioritizing those that impact public safety, national property and economic activity.

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said the fire had “paralyzed” the government’s internal digital platform, shutting down its official email system and several websites. More than 600 online government services and systems remained down on Saturday morning, including a mobile ID system and online postal services. Kim warned that airport travelers who depend solely on mobile IDs could also face disruption, according to local media.

One worker reportedly suffered first-degree burns to their face and arm while handling batteries, with almost 200 lithium-ion battery packs destroyed in the room, according to Yonhap news agency. The interior ministry said the government’s online platform for complaints and petitions was also suspended. Kim apologized on Saturday for the inconvenience to the public, and said the government would work swiftly to restore services.

Yoon said at a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters that “The goal of responding to this incident is not merely to resume operations but to build back public trust.”