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NIRS data center chief relieved of duty over massive outage after fire

Published: 29 Nov. 2025, 11:13

A police officer walks past the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon on Oct. 2. [NEWS1]

The head of the state data center has been relieved of his duty over the massive service outage caused by a fire at the facility in September, officials said Saturday.

The fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) broke out on Sept. 26, damaging servers and crippling key online administrative systems, such as government websites and local community center systems, across the country. Though the fire was put out the following day, a number of services were out for days and even weeks in some cases.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety relieved Lee Jae-yong, the NIRS chief, of his position in its recent personnel reshuffle, along with a high-level official who led the ministry's digital government innovation office, a ministry official said.

The decision came after Lee and three other officials had been booked for causing a fire through negligence while on duty, the official said.

“Director Lee has been placed on standby,” the official said. “We'll do our utmost to ensure the recovery work of the system is completed without any issues.”

Earlier this month, the government said more than 95 percent of the services at the data center, located in the central city of Daejeon, had been restored.

An explosion of lithium-ion batteries in a server room has been cited as the main cause of the blaze.

Yonhap