A fire broke out on Friday at one of Samsung’s data centers in Gwacheon, South Korea, causing damage but likely not affecting any stored data, the company said.
The fire started around 11am local time in an underground facility that houses servers and equipment for Samsung SDS, the IT services arm of the Samsung conglomerate. Thick black smoke was seen pouring from the building’s exits.
Firefighters responded quickly and extinguished the blaze within a few hours. One subcontractor was injured by falling debris and taken to a nearby hospital, but fortunately there were no other casualties reported.
Samsung said that while the fire damaged one floor of the server room, it likely did not reach the servers themselves. As a precaution, the company has already begun backing up data stored at the Gwacheon site to other data centers in South Korea.
“We do not believe any data has been compromised by the fire,” said an unnamed Samsung SDS official. “However we are taking proactive steps to ensure no disruption to our clients’ businesses.”
The company said it is still investigating the cause of the fire. The Gwacheon data center is one of Samsung’s three major hubs for storing and processing internal company data and client information.
