SEOUL — Over 120 emergency calls failed to reach the Seoul fire department due to a network error earlier this week, affecting the city's emergency response capabilities temporarily, officials confirmed on Saturday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters reported that the network disruption began at 8:27 p.m. on Friday. This incident led to a significant but brief communication breakdown, during which authorities urged the public to use the police emergency number, 112, for immediate assistance. In South Korea, emergency calls are typically directed to 119 for fire services and 112 for police assistance.

The communication system was partially reactivated at 8:46 p.m., enabling operators to manually process incoming calls by pinpointing the location of the callers. Full functionality was restored by 9:15 p.m. Despite the 19-minute lapse in service, officials confirmed that the missed 129 calls were all non-urgent, alleviating concerns about potential risks to public safety due to the outage.