This article is by Choi Jong-kwon, Kim Bang-hyun and read by an artificial voice.



"All 384 battery packs installed on both sides of the air-conditioning and humidity control system in the fifth-floor IT room have been destroyed," Kim Ki-seon, head of the Yuseong Fire Station and chief of the emergency response unit, said Saturday.

"The IT room housed battery packs and servers, and we believe the servers have also been damaged."

The second through fifth floors of the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center house servers and related equipment that support 647 government systems, including Government24, Korea Post, the e-People petition portal and the Interior Ministry's website. Of these, about 70 systems operated through the fifth-floor servers were directly affected. The exact scope of server damage remains under investigation.

The blaze began around 8:20 p.m. on Friday while workers were preparing to relocate the room's lithium-ion batteries to the basement. A man in his 40s sustained first-degree burns to his face and arm due to the fire, which was extinguished around 9:50 a.m. ON Saturday, roughly 13 hours after it started.



"We were relocating equipment to the basement because keeping them together in the server room was highly risky," said NIRS' operation director Lee Sang-min.

"Although power had been shut off before starting the operation by separating the cables from the batteries, it is speculated that a spark ignited at some point," he said, adding that the precise cause would be determined through further investigation.

Fire authorities said suppression efforts were hindered because large amounts of water could not be used to protect sensitive servers containing national data.

"The temperature inside the server room rose to as high as 160 degrees Celsius," Kim said, explaining that firefighters had to alternate between limited water spraying and ventilation operations.

Firefighters broke windows and walls around 3:20 a.m. on Saturday to ventilate the site and finally contained the blaze by 6:30 a.m. Authorities are considering submerging damaged battery packs in water before removing them to prevent reignition.

Officials warned that removing the destroyed battery packs would also take time.

"Each pack is secured with multiple bolts, which may have melted during the fire. There's a risk of explosion during removal, so transporting them outside will be a lengthy process," an NIRS official said.

To restore systems, the agency plans to utilize backup data and quickly procure new equipment. It said it will initiate the restoration process as soon as the HVAC system regulating the server room temperature is repaired.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.