POSCO has reported smooth progress in its efforts to resume operating three blast furnaces at its steelworks plant in the southeastern city of Pohang from Saturday after Typhoon Hinnamnor forced a shutdown on Wednesday.

The nation’s leading steelmaker said on Friday that efforts to normalize such operations, including resuming the provision of steam, oxygen and nitrogen, are being carried out around the clock without a hitch.

Earlier on Thursday, the plant completed the reactivation of substations and resumed providing water to the steel mill.

The Pohang mill was forced to shut down on Wednesday after ground-level and subterranean floors of its major facilities were inundated early hours Tuesday due to record rainfall and flooding of a nearby stream.

In particular, the mill’s three blast furnaces suspended operations for the first time in 49 years.

POSCO has been exerting all-out efforts to restart the furnaces as quickly as possible to avoid keeping them offline for five days, at which point reoperation would take months and inflict losses in the hundreds of billions of won.