ⓒYONHAP News

A top executive at the tech giant Kakao Corporation stepped down on Wednesday in the aftermath of a data center fire that caused massive disruptions to the company's services over the weekend, including its mobile messenger app, Kakaotalk, that is used by some 90 percent of South Korea's population. Kakao also reiterated that it plans to compensate those who suffered losses. 

Report: The two co-CEOs of Kakao Corporation bowed down to apologize. 

[Hong Eun-taek - Co-CEO, Kakao Corp. (Korean-English)]

"We would like to bow our heads in a sincere apology to those who went through inconveniences due to the fire at the SK Pangyo data center on October 15." 

The Kakao executives held a news conference on Wednesday, four days after a fire at a key data center knocked out a slew of the company's services, including KakaoTalk, a messenger service used by some 90 percent of people in South Korea. Kakao’s banking and ride hailing services also ground to a halt as no proper back-up system came into effect.

Kakao's co-CEO Namkoong Whon announced his resignation.

[Namkoong Whon - Co-CEO, Kakao Corp. (Korean-English)]

"As a co-CEO of Kakao, I feel terrible and acknowledge my heavy responsibility for the incident. So I am stepping down from my post in order to reaffirm Kakao's determination for renewal and change. I will be working as a disaster subcommittee chief of the company's emergency council and focus on making up for Kakao's deficiencies."

Kakao will be headed by Hong Eun-taek, one of the co-CEOs. Hong promised to discuss ways to compensate users and related parties for damages, before determining the liability of SK C&C, which housed the data center.

With power supply back for all of Kakao's 32-thousand servers as of early Wednesday, Hong said its services used by the majority of the South Korean public have now been normalized.

Meanwhile, Kakao founder Kim Beom-su will appear before a parliamentary audit session next week, along with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and others involved in the server knock-out. 

Police raided the SK C&C building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Friday, as part of an investigation into the fire that caused a massive service disruption at Kakao and Naver.

Investigators from the Gyeonggi Bundang Police Station are seeking evidence that will help them determine whether abnormal signals were detected from servers prior to the fire that erupted last Saturday.

They will also seize documents on battery inspections, as well as fire and safety management, to determine the exact cause of the blaze that more than 100 firefighters put out in two hours and another six hours to ensure no sparks or embers remained.