'Kakao Outage Crisis' 2nd Joint Inspection Underway... "Ignition Source is Battery Module" (Comprehensive)

Police Complete Second Investigation of SK C&C Pangyo Campus Fire
Cause of Fire Estimated as Electrical Factor...One Battery Module Collected

Last weekend, due to a fire at the SK C&C data center, major Kakao services including KakaoTalk were suspended. On the 17th, forensic investigators were moving to conduct an investigation at the SK C&C data center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
Seongnam=Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Seongnam=Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Byung-don] The fire at the data management facility that caused the KakaoTalk service and other system failures last weekend has been tentatively concluded to have been caused by electrical factors.

The Southern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency's forensic team, the National Forensic Service, the Gyeonggi Fire and Disaster Headquarters, and the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation conducted a second inspection at SK Pangyo Campus 2 in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, starting at 11:20 a.m. on the 17th.

Following the first inspection the previous day, these agencies reached a tentative conclusion during the second inspection that the fire was presumed to have been caused by electrical factors. During this second inspection, one battery module that was burned in the fire was collected.

The National Forensic Service plans to conduct a detailed examination to analyze whether the fire was caused by the battery's own overheating or by electrical short circuits in wiring, among other possibilities. It is expected to take more than three weeks to obtain the detailed analysis results.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The police regard the interior of the collected battery module as the ignition point and believe the fire started due to electrical factors related to the battery module itself or surrounding equipment.

A police official stated, "Although the fire is presumed to have been caused by electrical factors, it is difficult to clarify the exact cause until the National Forensic Service's examination results are available. We plan to investigate keeping all possibilities open."

On the 15th at 3:33 p.m., a fire broke out in the electrical room on the third basement floor of Building A at SK Pangyo Campus in Sampyeong-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam City. There were no casualties, but the fire caused the server power to be cut off, resulting in various disruptions to Kakao, Daum, and Naver services.

In particular, Kakao's messenger application KakaoTalk experienced a blackout that lasted past midnight into the early morning of the next day, marking the longest outage in KakaoTalk's 12-year history.

Over the past weekend, due to a fire at the SK C&C data center, major Kakao services including KakaoTalk were interrupted. On the 17th, recovery work is underway at the SK C&C data center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
Seongnam - Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

From the morning of the 16th, KakaoTalk's text message sending and receiving functions were partially restored, but users continued to experience inconvenience as photo and video file transmissions were still unavailable for some time.

CCTV footage installed at the scene reportedly captured sparks occurring from one of the batteries in the electrical room, followed by the outbreak of the fire, and then the immediate activation of the automatic fire suppression system releasing gas.

The single battery that caught fire consists of five racks (shelves), and the fire completely burned one battery.

A police official said, "The exact cause of the fire will be finally determined by comprehensively reviewing the National Forensic Service's detailed examination results and investigations of related personnel."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.