World’s largest Boy Scout camp evacuated due to typhoon

Scouts from all over the world are currently meeting in Buan, South Korea. Heat, a lack of sanitary facilities and poor organization make things difficult for the young people. Now typhoon “Khanun” is causing the premature end.

It was planned as a large, peaceful encounter: The World Boy Scout Meeting (also known as “Jamboree”) in South Korea: Around 43,000 participants, including 2,200 Germans between the ages of 14 and 18, arrived last week.

But the complaints were piling up, rows of young people collapsed from the heat, and there was a lack of sanitary facilities.

Anyone who walks through the huge scout camp in Buan, South Korea, gets the impression that the young people from all over the world have come to terms with everything. Even a little with the daily 33 degrees in the shade, as Till says. He is 17 years old and a boy scout from Schleswig-Holstein: “Well, I’m totally used to the heat now, it’s normal. You just get up and it’s 30 degrees.”

And still 30 degrees when he goes to bed in the evening. He says enthusiastically that his group has already exchanged ideas with other scouts from Tunisia, the Philippines, Indonesia and many other countries.

“Everything at the last minute”

In the beginning there was almost no shade anywhere on the almost nine square kilometer site, but that has changed. At one point there is a group from Hamburg and Bremen. “Everything never goes perfectly at a scout meeting from the start, I actually thought it was okay,” says one participant.

Another added: “I have the feeling that the Koreans want to do everything at the last minute.” The showers were catastrophic. “Sometimes there was no water pressure, so you couldn’t take a shower. That was terrible. Never again in Korea in the summer.”

But he also says: “Everyone greets you, you can talk to each other here. We all help each other here, a lot of people are really friendly here and stuff. For example, I learned a South African dance and an Australian dance.” “I learned an Irish dance,” says another participant.

Some have already visited the border with North Korea on the pre-tour before the meeting, looked at the South Korean capital Seoul, and taken part in a tea ceremony. Despite the problems, the young people agree that it will remain a special experience for them.

Gernot Knittel is the contingent leader of the Germans. The Swabian speaks of a chain of infrastructural problems. “Before the ‘Jamboree’ we had training courses on Korean culture and how to deal with problems and the like. With our Central European way, we are simply reaching our limits. We exchange ideas closely with our European friends. But we achieve more than standing there together and shaking our heads unfortunately we don’t,” says Knittel.

There are now buses with air conditioning, new toilets have been installed, and the cleaning staff has been increased. But everything is going much too slowly, the German director complains.

At a press conference in the tent area, Kim, the responsible family minister, seemed overwhelmed when she violently attacked the Korean press. A majority of young people are very satisfied with the World Scout Meeting, statistics have shown that, she said with an expressionless face.

As poor as the organization was, the German scouts were impressed by the commitment of the population. “They went to our sanitary facilities and cleaned there with their own utensils. They tried to support the jamboree as best they could with their own resources. They also pooled money for at least three freezers,” says participant Anna.

Camp is cleared

Now the return of Typhoon “Khanun” is announced. “The ground is so compacted that absolutely nothing runs off here. And that’s just a pure catastrophe in a tent camp. And that means: If this rain comes, we can’t go on here,” says Knittel.

And it really won’t. The whole camp is to be cleared early on Tuesday, and the scouts are to be distributed to other campgrounds in the country. Actually, the meeting should last until August 12th.