A fire Saturday at a Kakao data center in Pangyo, south of Seoul, has led to a server outage affecting the KakaoTalk messenger app, along with other apps such as Kakao T, Kakao Map, Kakao Metro, Kakao Webtoon, Kakao Bank, Kakao-owned portal Daum and music streaming service Melon.

The internet connection for the apps has been unavailable since 3:30 p.m.

"There has been a fire at SK C&C data center since 3:30 p.m. Work has begun to put down the fire, but we are uncertain when the fire will be completely subdued," said John Kim, a PR manager at Kakao.

As of 2:16 a.m., Sunday, KakaoTalk messenger app has partially regained its mobile chatting function along with its other services including Melon and Daum.