Government prioritizes holiday recovery, secures funds, restores key services swiftly
Seoul
The South Korean government announced on Friday that it will speed up restoring online government services affected by last week’s fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) during the extended Chuseok holiday. Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung spoke at a government meeting, noting that only 17.8% of the 647 affected services had been restored a week after the fire caused a major system outage. The fire occurred at NIRS in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul.
Yun said the government will treat the seven-day holiday, which includes Chuseok, National Foundation Day, and Hangeul Day, as a crucial recovery period. He promised thorough efforts to ensure no gaps in administrative services and safety during this time. The holiday break started Friday and runs through next Thursday.
The government is also working with the presidential office and financial authorities to secure reserve funds for restoring and relocating damaged systems to an NIRS branch in Daegu, in southeastern South Korea. Yun added that fully fixing the network failures will take time, so key systems affecting people’s daily lives will be prioritized and managed separately.
As of Thursday, 112 online government services have been restored since the fire. By noon, the restoration rate was 17.3% with 112 of the 647 services back online, the government reported. The efforts continue as officials work to bring all services back to normal as soon as possible.
