SEOUL. — Overflowing trash bins. Dirty toilets. Bug-infested fields.
These were some of the conditions that about 40,000 teenage scouts had to contend with in the past week at the World Scout Jamboree, sending red-faced organizers in South Korea scrambling to fix matters before a looming typhoon forced everyone to leave the ill-fated campsite.
The event, the first global gathering of scouts since the pandemic, was attended by representatives from 155 countries and presented South Korea, which has hosted both the summer and Winter Olympics and the soccer FIFA World Cup, with yet another opportunity to showcase its ability to organize big events.
But planning documents and interviews with participants and government officials show that even without the challenges posed by the weather – the event was held in a heatwave – the jamboree was marred by unheeded warnings and insufficient preparation.
As far back as 2017, when South Korea won the bid to host the jamboree, the campsite on reclaimed mud flats was seen as potentially problematic, according to a Reuters review of publicly available government reports.
One of the reports showed that officials from Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency, a government organization that developed the campsite area, had called for enough shade and toilets to be set up after visiting the 2019 World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia to learn more about the event.
“It is located in a field without trees so it is necessary to create shade and shelters to avoid the heat for the safety of participants,” the report said. There must also be enough toilets and odor control to “not undermine national credibility,” it added.
However, in reports published in 2018 and 2020, North Jeolla provincial planners found that the original plans to plant “a rich forest” at the campsite would be impossible because the land was too salty. A province official said they had set up tunnels made of vines to help cool the area but acknowledged those weren’t enough.
Shortly after the scouts arrived last week amid unseasonably high temperatures of up to 34 C (93 F), hundreds fell ill with heat-related symptoms, bug bites, and other ailments.
Organizers then sent in more medics, supplies, and water trucks.
Matt Hyde, UK Scouts’ chief executive, told Reuters the group decided to withdraw its contingent – the event’s biggest – because toilets weren’t being cleaned, rubbish was building up, and scouts weren’t getting enough food.
“It wasn’t safe in there,” he said, calling for an independent inquiry into the event’s planning.
Unsanitary toilets were one of the biggest problems at the event, gender equality minister Kim Hyun-sook, the co-head of the organizing committee, said when asked about what went wrong.
The organizers say they boosted the number of cleaning staff from 70 to 540. Because of the camp’s “poor condition,” the province mobilized 520 public servants to help clean showers and toilets, a provincial official with direct knowledge of the matter said. The official declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media. — Reuters
