President Yoon Suk-yeol has canceled his attendance at the opening ceremony of a nuclear power reactor in southern South Korea on Wednesday due to extreme weather conditions, his office said.

Yoon had been scheduled to visit Uljin, 223 kilometers southeast of Seoul, to mark the beginning of commercial operations at the Shin Hanul No. 1 nuclear reactor, which took 10 years to build and was completed in 2020.

"The local government is working in emergency mode due to the cold wave," the presidential office said in a notice to the press.

The ceremony will still go ahead with Industry Minister Lee Chang-yang reading Yoon's congratulatory message on his behalf, it said. (Yonhap)