KT 화재로 인한 복구작업 진행... 정부차원 후속대책 논의
Over the weekend, a building in Seoul... owned by telecom company KT Corporation caught fire, leading to property losses and causing service disruptions for millions of its users.
Efforts to restore the damaged networks are still ongoing.
Today, the ICT ministry promised to introduce safeguard measures before the year is up.
For details let's turn to our Yoon Jung-min.
A fire on Saturday at a KT building in Seoul's Ahyeon neighborhood damaged its communications network in much of the capital... paralyzing mobile phone and internet services, as well as credit card transaction systems.
The incident affected millions of KT subscribers and businesses using its lines.
No casualties have been reported, but the fire caused property losses worth nearly 7 million U.S. dollars.
The mobile carrier apologized for the inconvenience and has been repairing the damaged infrastructure around the clock.
As of Monday afternoon, some 98 percent of its internet lines and more than 80 percent of mobile network had been restored.
It is also preparing compensation measures... including refunds on their customers' monthly bills.
On Monday, the Minister of Science and ICT Yoo Young-min convened an emergency meeting with the country's three major communications providers... namely KT, SKT and LG U-plus... to discuss follow-up measures and ways to minimize service disruptions in the future.
"The government and telecoms should strengthen safety measures and establish a back-up system for the tunnels in case of fires and other disasters. We should actively work together to put such a system in place."
Yoo promised to conduct thorough inspections of cable tunnels across the nation,... and also apologized for the shortcomings in the government's response.
Meanwhile, safety authorities have been investigating the causes of the fire that broke out over the weekend. The National Forensic Service also joined the probe on Monday.
Yoon Jung-min, Arirang News.
