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'I just wasted a trip': Citizens face delays days after data center fire

Published: 29 Sep. 2025, 18:18

A notice reading “Service unavailable due to system error” is posted on a self-service parcel kiosk at a post office in Seo District, Daejeon on the morning of Sept. 29. [SHIN JIN-HO]

At a post office in Dunsan-dong, a quiet neighborhood in the central city of Daejeon, a woman’s sharp, frustrated voice cut through the Monday morning bustle after her package to a foreign address would not go through.

A clerk behind the counter tried to calm her — the computers had only just come back online — but the system, like much of the government’s network, was still faltering days after a fire crippled a key government data center on Friday evening.

A nearby unmanned parcel kiosk displayed a notice reading “Service unavailable due to system error.” Before Friday, customers could send parcels through the kiosk, but all packages now had to be handled manually by postal workers. The ATM, which had been down the previous day, was back in service.

Across Korea, the outage, caused by a massive fire at the National Information Resources Service's (NIRS) data center in Daejeon late Friday, has rippled through the country’s tightly woven digital bureaucracy.

Residents have found themselves unable to renew identity cards, apply for public housing or log into local government portals. At community offices, clerks arrived early to prepare for long lines and blank screens, a rare reminder in one of the world’s most wired nations of how swiftly daily life can unravel when servers go dark.

Postal, civil services still disrupted

Interior and Safety Minister Yun Ho-jung bows in apology during a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting at the government complex in Sejong on Sept. 29, following a fire that disrupted administrative information systems at the National Information Resources Service. [YONHAP]

The government began restoring network and security equipment at 11:25 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. It is restarting systems on the second to fourth floors of the Daejeon facility, excluding the fifth floor, where the fire broke out. Out of 647 affected services, 96 were directly damaged by the fire, while 551 were preemptively shut down for protection.

At 9:10 a.m. on Monday, a kiosk at the Dunsan 2-dong community center displayed a message reading, “Service suspended until NIRS fire recovery is complete.” A resident who came to reissue a resident registration card was turned away.

“It’s my only form of ID, but they don’t know when I can get a new one,” the resident said. “The news said services were back, but I just wasted a trip.”

Online services down

A notice reading “Q-CODE service unavailable” is posted at an automated quarantine inspection gate in Terminal 1 of Incheon International Airport on Sept. 29, the fourth day after the fire at the National Information Resources Service data center in Daejeon. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

In Busan, online application and contract services at the Busan Metropolitan Corporation remained unavailable as all features requiring digital authentication were still offline. The agency’s website, including procurement services linked to the national “Nara Market” system, was also inaccessible.

Financial public institutions in the Busan International Finance Center were affected as well. The Korea Housing Finance Corporation reported delays in tasks that require administrative data, such as policy mortgages, housing pensions and guarantees.

Community service centers prepared themselves for further disruptions. "We held an emergency meeting last night to prepare for a possible service shutdown on Monday," said Gwak Yun-jin, an administrative officer at the Banyeo 1-dong center in Haeundae District.

“This morning, everyone came in an hour early to check the systems and get ready for civil service requests," Gwak said. Most services had returned to normal, but issuing or reissuing IC and mobile resident registration cards were unavailable.

Gwak added that demand surged on Monday after the end of a weekday-based application rule for the second round of consumer vouchers, putting additional pressure on staff.

Workers, residents face

Residents submit civil service requests at the Chipyeong-dong community center in Seo District, Gwangju on Sept. 29. [YONHAP]

In Gwangju, residents were also frustrated. “I took a half day off to get my ID reissued, but it turned out to be a wasted trip — now I’ll have to do it again,” said Kim Kyeong-hee from Dong District. “I didn’t realize even ID services were down.”

Government employees are just as frustrated. A civil servant in Gwangju, who requested anonymity, said, “We need to send materials for a National Assembly audit, but we may not make the deadline. We can draft official documents, but we can’t send them to central ministries because their servers are down."

Some lucky and well-prepared citizens were able to run their errands. At the Yongam 1-dong community center in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, some kiosks were operational on Monday morning. A resident was able to print a family registration certificate using fingerprint verification, but not with a mobile ID. “I brought my physical ID just in case, and luckily it worked,” the resident, surnamed Kim, said.

The center resumed issuing registration certificates, seal certificates and address change services — which make up about 70 percent of its workload. However, the “Haengbok-E-eum” social welfare system remained offline, preventing welfare eligibility checks.

“We can’t verify who qualifies for fee exemptions, so we’re waiving all service fees through Wednesday,” said Lee Sang-jong, the Yongam 1-song community center director. Lee added that although the first day of the new consumer subsidy application saw high demand, “Most systems were running, so confusion was limited.”

Because the government petition platform “e-People” remained down on Monday afternoon, residents had to visit local centers to file objections related to consumer coupons.

“Residents who need to update records, like childbirth, must now bring documents in person," a county official in North Chungcheong said. The official added that the shift from online to offline filings will cause "significant inconvenience" nationwide.

An out-of-order notice appears on the screen of a self-service civil document kiosk on the third floor of Jeju International Airport on Sept. 29. [YONHAP]

Jeju Airport services restored

In Jeju, the outage affected self-service kiosks and parking fee discounts at Jeju International Airport through Sunday. By 9 a.m. on Monday, all systems were restored. Some parking discounts, however, had not been applied properly during the outage.

Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung said the government would “work transparently and do everything possible to maintain service continuity while minimizing inconvenience.”

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.
BY SHIN JIN-HO, LEE EUN-JI, CHOI CHOONG-IL, CHOI JONG-KWON, HWANG HEE-GYU [[email protected]]