SEOUL, Sept 27 — South Korea is reeling after a massive fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data centre in Daejeon triggered widespread disruption across key government platforms. The incident has left over 70 critical services offline, including postal, legal, and identification systems, sparking nationwide concern about the resilience of national infrastructure.
The fire began around 8:20 p.m. local time last night and was reportedly caused by an explosion of a lithium-ion battery during maintenance. The battery was manufactured by LG Energy Solution, but the company has declined to comment as investigations are still ongoing.
According to fire officials, the explosion led to a thermal runaway—a dangerous chain reaction causing extreme temperatures—making it too hazardous for emergency teams to contain the blaze immediately. Firefighters were forced to proceed with extreme caution, especially given the presence of nearly 400 other battery packs in the facility.
By morning, the fire had been brought under control, but more than 600 servers remained shut down in an effort to preserve critical data. Officials are now racing to recover these systems and safely remove the remaining batteries from the affected floor.
The data centre acts as a cloud server hub for many of the country’s essential government operations. While backup data centres exist in other locations, the centralization of sensitive services at the Daejeon facility magnified the scope of the outage.
Among the most heavily impacted services are:
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Government ministry email systems
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National postal tracking and communications
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Mobile ID verification platforms
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Public legal databases
Some internal networks in the nearby city of Sejong were also reported to be completely paralysed. Many reporters were notified of the issue when government press contacts failed to respond via email.
During an emergency broadcast, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok publicly apologized to the nation, acknowledging the extent of disruption and the lack of service redundancy.
“There were difficulties in containing the fire because of the nature of critical government systems being concentrated at one site,” he said.
“We deeply regret the inconvenience to the public and are working around the clock to restore normalcy. Tax payment deadlines will be extended as a temporary measure.”
Officials confirmed one person sustained minor injuries. The most intense fire damage was found on the fifth floor of the data centre, where the initial explosion occurred.
As the government scrambles to bring essential systems back online, this incident has sparked wider questions about cybersecurity, infrastructure decentralization, and national preparedness in a highly connected society like South Korea.
