They should have been prepared...
Britain’s Scouting chief blasts organisers of Korean jamboree shambles after £1m bill for evacuation
BRITAIN’S Scouting chief has blasted the organisers of a jamboree in South Korea that has been plagued by disastrous weather.
Officials in the country are preparing to evacuate tens of thousands of teenagers from the coastal camp ahead of an incoming tropical storm.
The jamboree has already been marred by hot temperatures which forced many – including 4,500 British Scouts – off the site and into hotels at a cost of £1 million.
Matt Hyde, chief executive of UK Scouts, said the group had been ‘let down by the organisers’ and said the huge camp in the south-western county of Buan had dirty toilets and was generally unhygienic.
Some 2,500 participants have been treated for heat-related conditions since the jamboree started on Wednesday, including bug bites, skin rashes and heat exhaustion. There has also reportedly been an outbreak of Covid-19.
Now, as tropical storm Khanun bears down on the camp, the World Organization of the Scout Movement said it will be evacbefore uating everyone, bringing an end to the event. That means using buses to move some 36,000 Scouts – mostly teenagers – from 158 countries out of the storm’s path.
Khanun is expected to hit the country by Thursday morning, bringing winds of up to 95mph.
The storm has caused one death and 70 injuries on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, according to that country’s fire and disaster management agency. Japanese rail bosses said ‘ Shinkansen’ bullet train services could be suspended from tomorrow night to Thursday morning.
South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol has called for ‘ contingency’ plans, which could include relocating Scouts to hotels in the capital, Seoul, and other cities.
Long before the event started, critics raised concerns about bringing such large numbers of young people to a vast, treeless area lacking protection from the summer heat. And at the opening ceremony, a perspiring UK Chief Scout Bear Grylls urged participants to stay hydrated.
Mr Hyde told the BBC his organisation had brought its concerns to the event’s organisers, and he described the dire conditions at the camp. ‘We are both disappointed and feel let down by the organisers because we repeatedly raised some of these concerns we went. We were promised things were going to be put in place. Toilets that are being used by thousands and thousands of people are not being cleaned with the regularity you would expect.
‘It wasn’t just that, it was actually the lack of soap as well, so again it’s the compounding impact of all these things together but like all of these things, when you’re put in a position where you have to make difficult decisions there are choices.’ He added: ‘We have at this point had to make the difficult choice of investing our money to ensure that young people are safe.
‘That is the right thing to do and the board stand by it 100 per cent and unanimously.’
No details have been given on where the participants will stay until they return home. However, Choi Chang- haeng, secretarygeneral of the jamboree’s organising committee, said it has secured more than 340 evacuation venues, including community centres and gyms, in regions near Buan.
About 40,000 Scouts, mostly teenagers, from 158 countries came to the jamboree at a campsite built on land reclaimed from the sea.
The UK contingent of 4,500 was the largest, while 1,000 were from the United States. Those from the UK and the US have already been moved into hotels.
Temperatures had hit 35C (95F) in Saemangeum, near the city of Buan. Other parts of South Korea have topped 38C (100.4F), forcing the government to issue the highest heat warning in four years.
Saturday saw thousands of British children, aged 14 to 17, packing their bags at the campsite. The first wave of children arrived at hotels in Seoul – where they were met by Gareth Weir, the British deputy ambassador to South Korea.
British Scouts continued to move to hotels over the weekend.
‘We are disappointed and feel let down’