Naver downed by traffic surge after NK launch

The mobile webpage of Naver, South Korea’s largest online portal, suffered a brief service disruption early Wednesday after North Korea launched what it called a military reconnaissance satellite.

According to Naver, its the server went down for about five minutes, from 6:43 a.m. to 6:48 a.m. due to high traffic, soon after the Seoul Metropolitan Government issued an emergency alert text message urging people to prepare for evacuation at 6:41 a.m.

The message said the city government had issued a security alert at 6:32 a.m. and -- without elaborating as to why -- it urged people to prepare to evacuate and to help children, elderly and the weak.

“I wanted to get the news about the evacuation alert but access to Naver was so unstable,” a user told The Korea Herald under the condition of anonymity.

At around 6:29 a.m., South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired a projectile southward from the area of Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, and it flew over far west of the South Korean northwestern island of Baengnyeongdo, Incheon.

"After the emergency alert text message, the mobile website temporarily suffered from traffic overload causing service disruption. We took emergency measures to recover," a Naver official said.

"There has not been any problem with the PC version."

The Ministry of Interior and Safety later sent a separate message, saying the previous emergency alert from the Seoul government was sent by mistake.