"Power Shut Down Without Standard Procedures Due to Fire"
Recovery Team Includes 704 Personnel, Including Government Officials
List of 647 Disrupted Services Released
13.4% of the administrative information systems that experienced disruptions due to the fire at the National Information Resources Service have been restored. The government explained that, in order to prevent the spread of damage at the time of the fire, it immediately shut off power to systems in computer rooms that were not directly affected by the flames, skipping standard shutdown procedures. As a result, the reboot process is taking longer than usual.
Kim Minjae, Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, held a briefing on the fire at the National Information Resources Service on the afternoon of September 30 and stated, "As of 10 a.m., out of the 647 systems that experienced disruptions, 21 first-grade work systems, or 58.3%, have been normalized, bringing the total number of restored systems to 87."
The government is prioritizing the restoration of systems located in the computer rooms on the 2nd to 4th floors, in addition to the fifth floor, where the fire occurred. The 96 systems in the directly affected 7-1 computer room on the fifth floor are being relocated to the Daegu center, while the systems in the 7th and 8th computer rooms on the same floor are expected to be restarted after dust removal. Notably, the fifth floor houses more than half of all systems, with 330 systems (51%) concentrated in the 7-1, 7, and 8 computer rooms-200 in the 7th, 34 in the 8th, and the rest in the 7-1-resulting in extensive damage.
Restoration work began on September 28 and has continued for three days as of today, but 560 systems remain offline. More than 700 personnel, including 130 government officials and 574 maintenance staff, are involved in the recovery, but progress remains slow. Lee Jaeyong, Director of the National Information Resources Service, explained, "There are two possible scenarios when shutting down and restarting the power. One is that sensitive components may have been damaged by smoke or heat." He added, "Normally, there are procedures and sequences to follow when shutting down systems, but in this situation, power had to be cut quickly, so some systems were shut down out of order. This can put stress on components, and as a result, we sometimes need to replace parts during the reboot process, which is causing delays."
It is currently difficult to determine whether any data has been lost. Director Lee stated, "Since we are still in the recovery process, it is possible that we may discover some lost data among what remains, or we may not." He also noted that while major systems in grades 1 to 4 are backed up online daily, some grade 3 and 4 systems may contain information that was not backed up. The interval for offline backups for all systems is one month, which is a longer period.
In addition, it has been confirmed that a total of 15 people, including the responsible government official, were present at the work site during the fire. Director Lee said, "We have confirmed that there were 15 people at the site, including one responsible government official, five disaster prevention room employees, one supervisor, and eight workers."
As administrative systems became difficult to use, the government organized a support team to respond. When asked about relief measures for citizens affected by this service disruption, Lee Yongseok, Director of the Digital Government Innovation Office at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, "We are operating the 110 and 120 call centers and have organized a related support team to address any damages suffered by citizens. If specific cases arise, we will discuss them further and decide on the response measures."
Meanwhile, the government released the list of 647 systems that experienced disruptions on this day. Of these, 38 are first-grade systems with the highest importance, followed by 86 second-grade, 294 third-grade, and 229 fourth-grade systems.
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