Seoul Headquarters Fire at Korail, Train Stations and Automatic Ticketing Restored in 7 Hours

Temporary Restoration Completed
Full Refund for Unreturned Tickets

Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) announced that it has completed temporary restoration related to the fire at the Seoul Headquarters that occurred on the morning of the 6th, and has been operating all ticket counters, automatic ticket vending machines, and customer centers nationwide normally since 5:15 PM.

Firefighters who had withdrawn from the scene at the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) Seoul Headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, where a fire broke out on the morning of the 6th, are being redeployed to the site.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

Tickets that could not be refunded at station counters on that day can be fully refunded without cancellation fees if submitted within one year through the KORAIL website's civil complaint submission or at a nearby station.

A KORAIL official stated, "There were no casualties or train delays caused by this fire," and added, "Thanks to the prompt response of the fire authorities, the situation was quickly brought under control. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to train users."

According to the fire authorities and KORAIL, at around 9:40 AM that day, an unknown fire broke out on the 4th floor of the KORAIL Seoul Headquarters building in Dongja-dong, Yongsan-gu, where the IT operations room is located. The fire authorities arrived at the scene around 9:45 AM after receiving the report and mobilized 46 vehicles and 177 personnel to extinguish the fire. The fire spread up to the 8th floor through ducts (pipes) and was largely contained at 11:03 AM, about 1 hour and 20 minutes after it started. The fire was completely suppressed around 1:10 PM, about two hours later.

At the time of the fire, about 20 employees responsible for railway transportation tasks and about 10 IT operations personnel were in the building and evacuated quickly on their own, resulting in no casualties. However, due to a computer system failure, ticket inquiry, issuance, and refund operations at some train station counters nationwide were not conducted normally for a while.