INVESTIGATION INTO KAKAO’S DATA CENTER

[Anchor Lead]

The Kakao Talk messenger service has yet to be recovered completely following a blaze at the company's data center. Meanwhile an investigation into the cause of the fire is gaining speed. Police confirmed on Monday that the inferno started in a battery for supplying emergency power, and will conduct an in-depth inspection. Special fire inspections are also to be carried out at the data centers of the nation's three telecom providers.

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The second investigation of the SK data center was focused on finding where exactly the fire began. Police, fire fighters and officials from the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation inspected the electric room for four hours and obtained CCTV footage of the first moments of the blaze. Police confirmed that the first sparks began in a UPS battery, an emergency power supply device, on the third basement floor of the electric room. UPS batteries are used to store electricity at facilities that consume a lot of power, like data centers, to prepare for blackouts. The results so far point to the possibility of malfunction in one of the UPS battery's modules or electric issues in surrounding devices. Police have requested the National Forensic Service to conduct an in-depth investigation. The results will likely take at least three weeks.

[Soundbite] (Firefighter (VOICE MODIFIED)) : "I heard the Nat’l Forensic Service is handling it. They disassembled the battery module and took the parts that are suspected to be problematic."

Meanwhile authorities are pushing for emergency measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. The Gyeonggi-do provincial government has decided to carry out special fire inspections at the data centers of the nation's three telecom providers. Each center will be inspected for loopholes in fire prevention and will be ordered to take corrective measures if any issues are detected.