**”Battery Rack Power Cut-off and Insulation Work Ignored; No Thermal Runaway in Fire”**
In relation to the fire at the National Computing and Information Resources Management Institute (referred to as NCIRM), which caused a disruption in government networks, the police have booked a total of 19 individuals, including Director Lee Jae-yong and other NCIRM and contractor affiliates.
The Daejeon Police Agency announced on the 25th that Director Lee and three other NCIRM personnel, along with the site manager, workers, a supervising contractor, and other on-site personnel totaling nine individuals, have been booked on charges of professional negligence resulting in fire.
Additionally, the representatives, directors, and team leaders of five companies, which include the contractors who won the bid and the companies that illegally subcontracted the project, have been booked for violating the Electrical Construction Business Act. Among them, the representative of company A, which accepted a sub-subcontract and executed the actual construction, faces a charge of professional negligence resulting in fire.
The police, based on investigation findings and opinions from the National Forensic Service, stated, “The NCIRM fire occurred because workers carried out tasks without cutting off power to a substantial number of lithium-ion batteries connected to the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) main unit.”
A police official explained, “After cutting off UPS power, the power to all control boxes (BPU) on top of each battery rack (1 through 8) should have been cut off before starting work. However, work was conducted with only the power to rack 1 cut off, and there was a failure to conduct the necessary insulation work by detaching the wires attached to the BPU.”
The police verified through a comparison of CCTV footage from the time of the fire and forensic reconstruction experiments that there was no fire due to thermal runaway of the lithium-ion batteries.
A police representative stated, “The fire was due to negligence, and multiple illegalities were confirmed throughout the construction process, where the company awarded the procurement for battery relocation subcontracted the job to another company, and they further subcontracted it.” The booked suspects will be referred to the prosecution as the investigation wraps up.