South Korea: Phone lines restored to normal at major financial houses after fire of undetermined cause erupts in underground facility

Communication networks at major financial institutions in Yoido impaired by a weekend fire have been restored, while repair work is still under way to revive phone and power lines in the rest of the district.

Disaster relief officials said yesterday that they expected banking and other operations in the predominantly financial district to go smoothly today.

Officials said that over 100 employees from Korea Telecom have been at work since Saturday repairing some 33,000 damaged telephone circuits in the area.

"By Monday morning, some 20,000 lost circuits should be restored to normal," a Korea Telecom official said.

"There should be no hindrance to financial operations," he said.

Communication at major financial houses was already made possible Saturday by means of temporarily installed high-speed circuits.

Damaged phone lines in near-by apartments are also expected to be restored by this afternoon, relief officials said.

Once communication networks are normalized, Korea Power Corp. is expected to start working on restoring power lines that have been downed by the blaze. Relief workers had relied on electricity pulled from near-by transformer substations to carry out relief work.

A fire engulfed an underground facility late Friday in a section of one of the nation's busiest business districts, where the Korea Stock Exchange and rows of securities and investment trust firms are located.

Electricity, water and telecommunications in the area were instantly cut off.

The fire was not extinguished until Saturday afternoon, as firefighters were pushed back by a steady flow of toxic gas and heat from the underground tunnel.

A nine-member investigation team made of fire experts has been assigned to the site to determine the exact cause of the fire.

link

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/news/2000/02/__02/20000221_0215.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 20, 2000