The £1m cost of relocating the 4,500-strong UK contingent at the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea will affect the work of the Scout Association for as much as five years, the organisation’s boss has said.
Matt Hyde, the UK Scouts chief executive, said the association had been forced to dip into its reserves after the event’s organisers decided to clear the campsite five days early because of an incoming typhoon that is expected to make landfall over the Korean peninsula in the coming days.
Hyde said the organisation of the event had been poor even before the typhoon threat. “We feel let down by the organisers because we repeatedly raised some of these concerns before we went, and during, and we were promised things were going to be put in place and they weren’t,” he told the BBC.
“If you can imagine [toilets] that are being used by thousands and thousands of people that are not being cleared with the regularity you would expect, you can imagine the sort of things that people were seeing.”
He said the cost of dealing with the fallout would reach far into the Scout Association’s future.
Hundreds of people had fallen ill during a period of extreme heat at the event, which had drawn 43,000 young Scouts from 158 countries.
The governor of North Jeolla province, which is hosting the event, has apologised, and officials have sent in scores of water trucks and air conditioners to keep participants cool.
Typhoon Khanun, which has wreaked havoc in southern Japan, is forecast to reach southern South Korea on Thursday, near the jamboree’s campsite.
Kim Sung-ho, a senior interior ministry official, told reporters that about 36,000 participants would be taken by bus on Tuesday to areas away from the path of the typhoon.
“I can say that it is the location that is only changing because of the natural disaster, but it is still continuing,” Kim Hyun-sook, whose ministry is organising the event, told the same media briefing.
One British parent, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the organisation of the event had sounded “dreadful” when communicating with her teenage daughter on the trip.
“The trip cost over £5,000 and what I’m hearing from my daughter sounds like the event has become very disorganised and frankly quite miserable,” she said. “The weather conditions have clearly caused chaos, she missed the opening ceremony after queueing for over two hours to try and enter the stadium. On the first night they were given a damaged tent and then were also not directed as to where to pitch it.”
Another mother of a 16-year-old boy at the event, who also wished to remain anonymous, said her son had told her the organisation at the event was a “shambles”. Speaking on Saturday, she said: “The scout motto is ‘be prepared’, but the South Korean government wasn’t. I know the heat is not the government’s fault, but perhaps there could have been some planning for the heat … I think they were preparing for rains, not a heatwave.”
She added: “The conditions were unbearable, really,” adding that she understood some of the toilets were “filthy” and that there was limited shade available. “On the phone, he sounded exhausted with the heat.”
Some of the scouts at the event had been building up to their trip for years. One, who wished remain anonymous, told the Guardian of their initial excitement at arriving in South Korea but, referring to the heat they experienced when they arrived, added: “It’s sometimes a bit demoralising. We had to wait an hour for the shower this morning. There’s not always toilet paper and there’s no soap around, but it’s OK. There’s some fun activities to do.”
Another described the trip as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. Despite the heat conditions, she said the scouting spirit was always to look for solutions and remain positive.
