Tag: fire

I have driven on this expressway many times and it is amazing that apparently an accident with a garbage truck caused a fire this big:

At least five people were killed and 37 others injured, three of them seriously, Thursday in a noise-barrier tunnel fire along an expressway in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, fire authorities said. 

The blaze was reported to have occurred at 1:49 p.m. inside the noise tunnel in Gwacheon along the Second Gyeongin Expressway that connects the western port city of Incheon to Seongnam City, the authorities said.

Fire authorities initially announced the fire started after a collision between a bus and a garbage truck but later said they would need further investigation to determine the exact cause, leaving open the possibility that the truck alone may have been responsible for the deadly blaze.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You would think major companies like Kakao and Naver would have a more robust back up server capabilities to have resiliency against unexpected incidents like this:

KaKao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messaging app Kakao Talk, has restored 40 percent of its data center’s servers, an executive said Sunday, as it is working to fully repair its services disrupted by a fire.

The tech giant has restored 12,000 servers out of 32,000 at its data center in the SK CC building located in Pangyo, just south of Seoul, said Yang Hyun-seo, Kakao’s vice president handling the company’s relationship with the government.

“It is hard to tell exactly how long it will take before Kakao Talk and other services can be fully restored,” she said at the site, citing a massive server loss.

Kakao has servers in Pangyo and Anyang, both in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, as part of its risk management policy, but the fire, which has been extinguished, was unexpected, according to Kakao.

The fire broke out Saturday in the SK CC building, which houses the data centers of Kakao and the country’s leading search engine Naver, a rare accident that disrupted both tech giants’ services.

President Yoon Suk-yeol instructed officials to make efforts to ensure Kakao can quickly resume its services as he called on the company to find out the exact cause of the fire and come up with measures to avoid future disruptions of services.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Yoon administration jumping into this makes it seem like it is a national emergency. I think people can survive a day or two without a social media site and search engine service.

There was a horrible fire yesterday in Daejeon that unfortunately caused seven people to be killed:

The death toll from an outlet mall fire in the central city of Daejeon has risen to seven, with one person under medical treatment after sustaining serious injuries, officials said Monday.

The blaze at Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, is believed to have started from the basement parking lot at 7:45 a.m. and spread quickly on cardboard boxes, sending dark smoke filling the entire floor, according to witnesses and survivors. The fire was completely extinguished around 3 p.m.

Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 30s, were found with serious injuries and sent to a hospital but were later pronounced dead in the morning. Five more people were later found dead while another person was sent to a hospital after sustaining serious injuries, according to the officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible tragedy over in Daegu:

A fire apparently caused by arson killed seven people and injured 50 others at an office building in the southeastern city of Daegu on Thursday, officials said.

Police pinpointed a 53-year-old man as the suspected arsonist responsible for the blaze based on CCTV footage. The man was killed at the scene, they said.

The fire started at around 10:55 a.m. on the second floor of the five-story building housing lawyers’ offices in Daegu, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul, according to firefighting officials. 

The fire killed seven people, including an attorney and five assistants from a law office on the second floor. 

Fifty others were hurt, suffering burns and inhaling smoke, and 30 of them were sent to nearby hospitals. Many others were evacuated to safety.

Police suspect the alleged arsonist set fire to a lawyer’s office handling a case involving him.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.