By Jun Ji-hye
Following a fire at a KT building that caused unprecedented internet and phone disruptions, safety experts said Monday that it was urgent to revise the Fire Services Act and establish a mutual cooperation system between the nation's three telecom companies to prevent a recurrence at nationally important communication facilities.
The fire broke out in the basement of the KT building in Ahyeon-dong, western Seoul, Saturday, and burned more than half of the equipment in a 150-meter-long tunnel, which housed underground network cables, until the fire was extinguished about 10 hours later.
According to fire authorities, there was only one fire extinguisher in the basement, which lacked fire-suppression systems such as sprinklers.
KT said it did not violate the Fire Services Act as the current law calls for the obligatorily installing of sprinklers only when a cable tunnel is more than 500 meters long.
Kong Ha-sung, a professor at the department of fire protection and safety management of Woosuk University, said it was correct that the Fire Services Act did not apply to a cable tunnel less than 500 meters in length. He stressed that the law should be revised to force companies to install fire-suppression systems regardless of the length of the tunnels.
“Cable tunnels are very important facilities. A fire can cause enormous chaos among the people, but it is difficult to detect a fire there,” he said. “Proper fire-suppression systems should be installed regardless of the length.”
He also said fire-suppression systems should be automated so that a fire can be extinguished immediately upon detection.
“Fire-suppression systems that are currently installed in cable tunnels whose length is more than 500 meters are not automated,” he said. “Such systems start operating only after firefighters arrive at the site and connect their equipment to pipes. Automated systems are necessary to put out a fire right after detection.”
Calls are also growing for the nation's three telecom companies ― SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus ― to set up a mutual cooperation system.
Park Cheong-woong, a professor at the department of fire protection and safety management of Sejong Cyber University, said such a system would enable customers to use communication networks of other firms when breakdowns occurs at one company.
In explaining its countermeasures, KT said later Monday that it would install sprinklers and CCTVs in all of its cable tunnels.
“We will also cooperate with SK Telecom and LG Uplus as well as the Ministry of Science and ICT to come up with measures to minimize damage,” a KT official said. “The measures could include mutually supporting mobile base stations.”