South Korea: 47 Civil Application Services Restored After Outage Caused By Data Center Fire

(MENAFN- IANS) Seoul, Sep 29 (IANS) A total of 47 public services, including a major government portal and the banking arm of the national postal service, were restored Monday following an outage caused by a fire at the state data management agency.

As of 8:30 a.m., 47 of the 647 civil application services that were suspended in the wake of Friday's fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, were back online, according to the interior ministry.

The government has said it is prioritizing the restoration of services directly affecting people's safety and economic activities, but the slow normalization process is expected to delay many administrative procedures when local government offices reopen Monday after the weekend.

Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung said the restored services included GOV, a major government portal for civil application services, and the banking arm of Korea Post, the national postal service.

"I deeply apologize for causing great inconvenience to the people through this disorder," he said, rising from his seat and bowing in apology during a meeting of the government's Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters in the central administrative city of Sejong.

The minister said it will be difficult to immediately restore services linked to 96 systems destroyed in the fire, but the government will push to relocate them to a cloud at the NIRS' branch in the southeastern city of Daegu and quickly come up with alternatives, Yonhap news agency reported.

He also acknowledged public inconveniences will likely grow as a result of increased demand for civil application services after the weekend and instructed each ministry and local government to come up with ways to minimize disruptions.

The government has said relocating and reactivating the 96 damaged systems is expected to take around two weeks, meaning a considerable amount of time will be needed to fully restore all services.

For example, applications for the second round of government-issued consumption coupons will be possible, but a government site receiving civil complaints has been suspended, making it necessary to visit the local community service center to file any complaints.

A nationwide cremation booking site has also been affected by the outage, requiring people to contact individual crematoriums online or via phone.

President Lee Jae Myung apologized to the nation Sunday, saying the people are experiencing "great inconvenience and anxiety" due to the fire.

He instructed the government to do everything to restore the services quickly ahead of the Chuseok holiday, when demand for postal, delivery and financial services is high.

The fire began after a lithium-ion battery exploded in a server room on the fifth floor of the NIRS and was completely extinguished at 6 p.m. Saturday, some 22 hours after the outbreak, authorities said.

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