SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) – South Korea is plowing ahead with the World Scout Jamboree, rejecting a call by the world scouting body to cut the event short as a punishing heat wave caused thousands of British and United States (US) scouts to begin leaving the coastal campsite yesterday.
Hundreds of participants have been treated for heat-related ailments since the jamboree began on Wednesday at the coastal site in Buan as South Korea grapples with one of its hottest summers in years.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during a news conference that South Korea is determined to continue the event as planned through August 12. He promised additional safety measures including more medical staff, air-conditioned vehicles and structures that provide shade.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol promised an “unlimited supply” of air-conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks to provide chilled water.
Around 700 additional workers will be deployed to help maintain bathrooms and showers, which some participants have described as filthy or unkempt. There also will be more cultural activities involving travel to other regions so scouts aren’t entirely stuck at a venue with heat problems, officials said. About 40,000 scouts from 158 countries, mostly teenagers, are at the jamboree campsite built on land reclaimed from the sea. Long before the event’s start, critics raised concerns about bringing that many young people to a vast, treeless area lacking protection from the summer heat.
Han insisted organisers made “significant improvements” to address the extreme heat and said the decision to continue was supported by representatives of national scout contingents who met yesterday.
Han stressed how the country was pouring national resources into the event, including dozens of government vehicles providing cooling systems, shade structures procured from military bases and teams of nurses and doctors from major hospitals.
