South Korea Faces Massive Data Loss After Fire Destroys Government Data Center

South Korea’s government may have permanently lost 858 terabytes of critical data following a devastating fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center in Daejeon on September 26. The blaze, reportedly caused by a battery malfunction, crippled numerous government systems and paralyzed operations across multiple departments.

The most significant loss centers on the G-Drive, a government-run cloud platform used by public officials to store work files and documents. Each employee was allotted 30GB of space. However, authorities now confirm that the G-Drive had no backup, citing its massive storage volume as the reason. Out of 96 affected systems, it remains the only one with no recovery options.

“The G-Drive couldn’t have a backup system due to its large capacity,” an official told The Chosun. As a result, many government departments that depended entirely on the platform have been forced to halt daily operations.

Recovery efforts remain slow—only 17.8% of the 647 affected networks have been restored. Officials expect full recovery to take up to a month.

In a tragic development, a 56-year-old government officer overseeing the restoration project died by suicide on October 3. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety is investigating whether job-related stress or overwork played a role.

Authorities have arrested four individuals as part of a broader probe into possible professional negligence behind one of South Korea’s worst-ever data infrastructure failures.