South Korea’s government has mobilized water trucks, air conditioned buses and medics to help safeguard tens of thousands of participants—most of them teenagers—taking part in the World Scout Jamboree after hundreds fell sick with heat-related illness, officials announced on Friday, as concerns intensify amid an ongoing heatwave, swarms of insects and reports of poor shelter and sanitation.
The Scout Jamboree camp.
South Korean President Yook Suk Yeol ordered an unlimited number of air conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks—to provide shelter and cold water, respectively—to be dispatched to the site of the 25th World Scout Jamboree, a spokesperson said Friday.
Additional medical and sanitary staff will also be sent to the event’s site in Saemangeum, an unsheltered reclaimed tidal flat in the southern county of Buan.
Yoon, through his spokesperson, said every government department should be making “all-out efforts to immediately solve problems at the site,” and he approved some $5.3 million in emergency funding to help the event.
Some 43,000 people—mostly teens between 14 and 18—from 158 countries have traveled to South Korea to attend the jamboree, according to organizers, which is the Scouts’ first global gathering since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Organizers have faced heavy criticism for their apparent failure to prepare for the influx of people and the lack of shelter, water and adequate sanitation at the site, particularly given people are camping and the hot weather, and there have been reports of mosquito and other insect swarms attracted by flooding just before the event kicked off on Tuesday.
There were 1,486 visits to on-site medical facilities on Thursday alone, said Kim Hyun-sook, South Korea’s gender equality and family minister and the chair of the jamboree’s organizing committee, including 383 with insect bites, 250 with skin rashes and 138 with heat-related illnesses.
- That’s at least how many people have sought medical treatment for heat-related illness at the jamboree since the event started.
While hot and humid conditions are to be expected around this time of year in South Korea, temperatures are currently well above what is usually expected. In some parts of the country, temperatures have exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit and between 16 and 22 people are reported to have died from the extreme heat. The humid conditions in South Korea make such temperatures particularly dangerous and feel hotter than they are. The extreme heat comes as part of a broader heat wave across Asia, with Japan also reporting deaths from scorching conditions. It comes on the heels of extreme heat waves in China, Europe and North America, which broke records, triggered floods and sparked wildfires.
South Korea spends millions to rescue World Scout Jamboree amid scorching heatwave (Guardian)