South Korea to evacuate tens of thousands of scouts from world jamboree as storm looms
SEOUL — South Korea will evacuate tens of thousands of scouts by bus from a coastal jamboree site as Tropical Storm Khanun looms, officials said Monday.
More than 1,000 vehicles will be used starting Tuesday morning to move 36,000 scouts — mostly teenagers — from the World Scout Jamboree in the southwestern county of Buan, according to Kim Sung-ho, a vice minister at South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
Most of the scouts, who come from 158 countries, will be accommodated at venues in Seoul and the nearby metropolitan area, Kim said. Officials were trying to secure spaces at government training centers and education facilities. Kim said it would take six hours or more to evacuate the scouts from the campsite, which organizers said would no longer be used for any event after they leave.
Officials at Camp Humphreys, a major U.S. military base 45 miles south of Seoul, did not immediately confirm reports that thousands of scouts from Sweden, Norway and Denmark were to be transferred to its facilities.
The base is already accommodating hundreds of American scouts, who were moved over the weekend because of heat concerns as South Korea grapples with one of its hottest summers in years.
The announcement of the evacuations came after the World Organization of the Scout Movement said it had urgently called on South Korea to move the scouts from the storm’s path and “provide all necessary resources and support for participants during their stay and until they return to their home countries.”
More than 100 people were treated for heat-related illnesses at the World Scout Jamboree being held in South Korea, which is having one of its hottest summers in years.
South Korea’s government did not immediately specify any venues where the scouts would be staying. David Venn, global director of communications for the World Organization of the Scout Movement, said it was still waiting for government officials to provide detailed plans.
An official from Gyeonggi province, South Korea’s biggest, which surrounds Seoul, said the province was working to secure accommodation based on the potential relocation of around 15,000 scouts to the region. The possible venues include the Korea International Exhibition Center, a major convention facility in Goyang, according to the official, who did not want to be named because the plans weren’t finalized.
Khanun has taken an unusual, meandering path around Japan’s southwestern islands for more than a week, dumping heavy rain, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting flights and train services. On Monday afternoon, it had sustained winds of 67 mph, with stronger gusts, and was forecast to maintain that strength as it brushed Japan’s main island of Kyushu this week, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
South Korea’s weather agency reported that Khanun was expected to make landfall in South Korea on Thursday morning, potentially packing winds as strong as 95 mph. Large swaths of the country’s south, including Buan, could be affected by the storm as early as Wednesday, the agency said.
Heavy downpours lash South Korea for a ninth day as rescue workers struggle to search for survivors in landslides, buckled homes and swamped vehicles.
The plans to evacuate the scouts were announced hours after President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said he called for contingency plans, including relocating the young people to hotels and other facilities in the greater capital area.
The weather agency said the storm was about 100 miles east of the city of Amami on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu and moving gradually northward Monday afternoon. It warned residents in affected regions to watch out for mudslides, high winds and rough seas.
The storm has caused one death and 70 injuries on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, according to the country’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Because of the forecast of harsh weather, West Japan Railway said there was the possibility of suspending the Shinkansen bullet train services from Wednesday night to Thursday morning.
The South Korean Safety Ministry said the storm would unleash strong winds and rain throughout the country from Wednesday to Friday, and instructed local officials to prepare to shut down coastal areas, hiking trails, river parks, underpass tunnels and other sectors vulnerable to flooding.
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Hot temperatures have already forced thousands of British and American scouts to leave the site, which is made on land reclaimed from the sea. The British scouts were transferred to hotels in Seoul while the American scouts were moved to Camp Humphreys.
Hundreds of participants had been treated for heat-related ailments since the jamboree started Wednesday. Long before the event, critics had raised concerns about bringing such large numbers of young people to a vast, treeless area lacking protection from the summer heat.
Geir Olav Kaase, leader of the 700-member Norwegian contingent, said Norwegian scouts had already started leaving the campsite Monday evening to “avoid any chaos that may arise in the event of a joint evacuation.” Kasse said the evacuations were proceeding in “close cooperation” with the Danish contingent, but he did not specify whether the Danes had started to leave, too.
“We do all we can to ensure that the scouts are safe and well, and that the transfer goes as smoothly as possible. We help each other and keep our spirits up,” Kaase said in a statement.
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The Swedish news agency TT said some 1,500 scouts from Sweden would be relocated to Camp Humphreys along with Norwegian and Danish scouts.
Kim Hyun-sook, South Korea’s minister of gender equality and family, said officials were trying to arrange new cultural events and activities for the scouts before they leave, including a possible K-pop concert at a Seoul soccer stadium Friday to go with the closing ceremony.
“We don’t see it that way,” Kim said when asked whether the scouts’ departure from Buan should be seen as an early end to the jamboree. “We are creating new programs with regional governments away from the campsite, so it could be said [that the] jamboree is widening.”
Organizers earlier Monday were scurrying to come up with plans to evacuate the scouts ahead of the storm’s arrival but weren’t committing to abandoning the campsite entirely.
Seoul has fewer people living on the streets than Los Angeles. But tens of thousands live in illegal units so small there is barely enough space to lie down.
Choi Chang-haeng, secretary-general of the jamboree’s organizing committee, said organizers had secured more than 340 evacuation venues, including community centers and gyms, in regions near Buan.
About 40,000 scouts came to the jamboree. About 4,500 were from Britain, making up the largest national contingent, while about 1,000 were from the U.S.
South Korea categorizes Khanun as a typhoon, defined as a tropical storm with winds stronger than 38 mph. South Korea’s weather agency expects Khanun to weaken to a storm within the next five days.
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