President Lee Jae Myung on Friday expressed condolences over an interior ministry official who died while working on the restoration of online government services following a fire-caused outage.
The official, who had led a team overseeing the recovery efforts, fell to his death at the government complex in the central city of Sejong earlier in the day.
"I pray for the repose of the deceased, who dedicated himself until the very last moment of his life to fulfill his mission as a public servant, and I express sorrow and mourning together with the people," Lee wrote on Facebook.
Lee said the late official carried out his duties with a sense of responsibility to swiftly ease public inconvenience and restore the normal functions of the government.
"We will never forget his sacrifice and devotion, made behind the scenes, to restore the daily lives of the people and help the nation overcome its crisis," Lee added.
The fire broke out last Friday at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, burning batteries and servers and crippling 647 online government services.
In the evening, Kang Hoon-sik, Lee's chief of staff, and Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, visited the official's funeral in Sejong to pay their respects. (Yonhap)
