Online portal Naver's mobile page suffers brief disruption after N.K. launch

Economy 09:19 May 31, 2023

SEOUL, May 31 (Yonhap) -- Online portal Naver's mobile webpage suffered a brief service disruption Wednesday after the North Korean launch of what seemed to be a space launch vehicle.

Access to Naver's mobile page was unstable or the service page did not open for about five minutes from 6:43 a.m. to 6:48 a.m., according to Naver Corp.

The service disruption came minutes after the Seoul city government sent out an emergency alert text message to citizens to prepare for evacuation at 6:41 a.m., shortly after North Korea fired what appeared to be a space launch vehicle.

Naver said it was associated with high traffic over the short period as a growing number of people had tried to get access to the mobile version of the country's largest portal site seeking for more information.

"We've dealt with the problem and now it is working well," an official from Naver said, adding that its web version did not experience such a spike in traffic.

The Seoul government later sent a separate message to say the previous alert was sent by mistake.