South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday ordered his government to urgently provide air-conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks to help cool down the tens of thousands of attendees at the World Scout Jamboree, where hundreds have sought medical treatment amid a scorching heatwave.
The event, which congregates teenage scouts from around the world, is this year taking place outdoors in the seaside county of Buan, some 180km southwest of Seoul.
Aside from colourful tents and awnings, there is little natural shade around the 8.8 sq km of reclaimed tidelands on which the gathering is held, and where participants have pitched their tents on shipping pallets laid on the soggy ground.
To make matters worse, apart from the hot and humid weather, the jamboree has also been plagued by bugs, dirty toilets, inadequate food, and a lack of services.
Weather forecasts show the mercury is expected to hover around 35 degrees Celsius with no signs of cooling down in the coming weeks at a venue where the quadrennial world jamboree is under way until August 12, with some 43,000 scouts from 158 countries taking part.
By the end of the first day on Tuesday, 315 participants needed treatment for heat-related symptoms, 106 others for sunburn and 318 others complained of mosquito bites, the Chosun newspaper daily said.
A parent whose daughter was attending the jamboree urged organisers to resolve the issues quickly.
“My daughter is there right now and is telling us that it is a shame, everything is uncontrolled, no food, no way to protect them from the sun, this is real chaos!” they wrote on the Facebook page of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM).
Yoon directed the government to “provide air-conditioned buses for scouts to stay cool at least for a while and refrigerator trucks to provide cold bottled water as much as necessary”, his presidential office said.He also ordered that meals at the event be “immediately improved” and tasked government ministries to resolve the problems at the site “with all their might”.
In addition to the scouts’ heat-induced health problems, hygiene issues including spoiled food, clogged toilets and inadequate shower facilities have also been raised. According to local news reports, eggs with mould were given to some participants, although they were not consumed before being discarded.
The WOSM on Friday said that over the past few days, an “extreme heatwave and humidity has caused some challenging conditions” for participants.
The South Korean organisers were increasing shaded areas and water around programme activities, making more air-conditioned spaces and transport available, deploying more doctors and nurses and increasing the availability of medical facilities and ambulances, it added.