A fire broke out at a building of South Korea's leading wireless and fixed-line services provider in central Seoul on Saturday, paralyzing the network in the region, fire authorities said.







(Yonhap)



The fire was fully extinguished after 10 hours, and no casualties have been reported.



The building of KT Corp., the country's No. 2 mobile carrier, located in the central Ahyeon district, caught fire around 11:12 a.m.



The authorities said the fire started in the basement of the building, where the company's communications equipment is located.



Firefighters extinguished most of the flames after about three hours but had to work several more hours to contain small flames as smoke kept rising. They mobilized excavators to dig up the ground.



The authorities said the fire was put out completely at about 9:26 p.m., about 10 hours after the first report was made.



"It was difficult to handle the situation because there was still heat inside and the underpass was long," a firefighting official said.







(Yonhap)