South Korea: 62 online public services restored after outage caused by national data centre fire

Seoul, Sep 29 (IANS) A total of 62 online public services in South Korea, including a major government portal and the banking arm of the national postal service, were restored on Monday following an outage caused by a fire at the state data management agency.

As of noon, 62 of the 647 public administration systems that were suspended in the wake of Friday's fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon, about 140 kilometres south of Seoul, were back online, according to the government.

The latest additions included the interior ministry's integrated public service management system and resident registration system, as well as the science ministry's postal and logistics system.

They did not, however, include the government-wide intranet, Onnara System, leading to disruptions in everything from policy decisions to purchases of work-related goods and services.

An official at the industry ministry said that in its case, booking flights and hotels for the delegation negotiating details of a tariff agreement with the United States will have to be done in writing without the usual electronic authorisation.

The government has said it is prioritising the restoration of services directly affecting people's safety and economic activities, but the slow normalisation process is expected to delay many administrative procedures as local government offices reopened after the weekend.

"I deeply apologise for causing great inconvenience to the people through this disorder," Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung 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.

Vice Interior Minister Kim Min-jae later told a press briefing that the relocation and restoration work is expected to take around four weeks.

Restored services included GOV.KR, a major government portal for civil application services, and the banking arm of Korea Post, the national postal service.

Applications for the second round of government-issued consumption coupons are possible, but a government site receiving civil complaints has been suspended, making it necessary to visit the local community service centre to file any complaints, Yonhap news agency reported.

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

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung apologised to the nation on 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.

Police have formed an investigation team comprising around 20 people to determine the cause of the fire, while three investigators specialising in lithium-ion batteries have additionally been assigned to the task, a police official told reporters during a regular press briefing.

The NIRS said in response to a query that the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) batteries that caught fire were assessed to be "normal" on periodic tests last year and this year, but their replacement had been recommended as they were past their 10-year lifespan.

The agency also clarified in response to reports that the batteries caught fire as they were being replaced that they were being relocated to the basement to be separated from servers.

--IANS

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