A sudden blackout hit the COEX mall in Gangnam, Seoul, causing an evacuation of visitors and office workers on Friday afternoon. No cases of damage have been reported, according to the Korea International Trade Association, the operator of Coex mall.
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A shop in the COEX mall temporarily shut down due to power outage on Friday afternoon. (Yonhap) |
The power was knocked out at 1:50 p.m. at the COEX mall and Korea City Air Terminal and retuned at 2:10 p.m. In a 20-minute-blackout, visitors rushed to evacuate the mall, with some being stuck in the elevators.
The four-day Creative Korea Expo is currently being held at the COEX mall, with some 1,700 organizations and companies and about 700 startups participating.
The power of ASEM Tower, next to Trade Tower, went back to normal operations, KITA said. But some office workers at the tower told The Korea Herald that the power outage was not recovered as of 3:30 p.m.
In order to resume full power, the KITA said it carried out an intentional temporary blackout for seven minutes later in the afternoon.
Some essential parts of the building, such as elevators used for cargo and office lights resumed operations when the emergency power generator was turned on.
An office worker also reported black smoke coming from outside of the building. It was later found to be the result of using an emergency power generator, not a fire.
Korea Electric Power Corp. suspects the power service wire construction in the area as the reason behind the outage, adding that the power lines are under normal operation. The exact cause of the blackout is under investigation, the state-run company said.
By Lee Hyun-jeong (
rene@heraldcorp.com)
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