Daejeon: A massive fire at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon has led to an unprecedented shutdown of Korea’s state data network, triggering a political blame game instead of focusing on recovery efforts.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the Democratic Party has accused the previous Yoon Suk Yeol administration of negligence, with Supreme Council member Jeon Hyun-heui labeling the outage as “a result of the Yoon government’s clear dereliction of duty.” President Lee Jae Myung apologized during a disaster response meeting but also implied a continuity of responsibility by comparing the situation to a similar outage in 2023.
The People Power Party (PPP) countered these allegations, with senior spokesman Park Sung-hoon criticizing President Lee for “shifting blame to the past government rather than taking responsibility.” This dispute echoes the November 2023 shutdown of administrative networks, where residents were unable to obtain official documents due to a hardware failure. At that time, the opposition had demanded the dismissal of Interior Minister Lee Sang-min. Now, President Lee, who was the opposition leader then, faces similar calls for the removal of Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung, highlighting how both parties have reversed roles but maintained their approaches.
Amidst the political sparring, citizens are grappling with disrupted services. Many residents have crowded local government offices to obtain documents in person, while online systems managed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, including cremation bookings, have been paralyzed. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety reported that some of the 647 affected systems have been restored, but a full recovery is expected to take weeks. Furthermore, ninety-six platforms, including the government’s civil complaint portal, will require around four weeks to transfer to backup facilities in Daegu.
Experts emphasize the need for systemic safeguards over political accusations. Following the 2022 KakaoTalk outage, the National Assembly mandated private platforms to establish backup data centers. However, similar redundancy measures have yet to be implemented for state systems. Officials caution that without duplication, a single point of failure can disrupt nationwide services.
The immediate priority is to stabilize the system and develop preventive measures against future occurrences. Political blame can be assigned later, but the public urgently needs a reliable national data network that can withstand emergencies.