Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
Hundreds of teenage boy and girl scouts have fallen ill at a global event in South Korea as a sweltering heat wave sweeps the country, angering some parents who have called for the 12-day event to be canceled.
Nearly 40,000 participants – mostly middle and high schoolers – have traveled from 155 different countries to attend the event, a week-long festival featuring cultural performances and outdoor activities, according to Kim Hyun-sook, the chairman of the jamboree’s Organizing Committee and the Minister of Gender Equality and Family.
Their visit came as South Korea recorded consistently high temperatures up to 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), triggering nationwide heat wave warnings and posing a major headache for jamboree organizers.
On Thursday alone, 1,486 people visited the on-site hospital at the World Scout Jamboree, held in Saemangeum, a few hours south of Seoul, according to Kim.
Of the people who visited the hospital, 250 reported skin rashes, 138 had heat-related illness, and 386 had bug bites, he added – but none were in a critical condition, said an official from the Jeonbuk Fire Service.
As more children fell ill, worried parents and observers from around the world flooded the event’s social media pages with frantic questions, angry reprimands for organizers, and demands for the event to end – with messages written in various languages.
One commenter wrote that their son had spent their night at the jamboree sleeping on the ground because there were no tents, cots or other gear available. “My wallet paid a hearty price for this chaos,” they wrote.
One writing in Spanish said their daughter was attending the event and had reported there was “no food, no way to protect them from the sun.”
CNN has reached out to jamboree organizers for a response to the parents’ comments.
Photos from the site do show participants gathering at a water supply zone to cool themselves off, and resting in shaded areas.
National authorities are also getting involved, with President Yoon Suk Yeol ordering an “unlimited supply” of large air-conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks to the campsite on Monday. He also ordered organizers to improve the quality of food provided and to “immediately resolve” issues occurring from the site, according to the presidential office.
Kim, the minister and jamboree organizing chairman, said about 130 cooling buses will be deployed to the site on Friday, and an additional 10 refrigerator trucks to be dispatched soon. Each scout will be given five bottles of cold water each day, as well as cooling masks, hats, sunscreen, ice packs and salt pills, he added.
The fire service has been operating the on-site hospital on the campsite, with about 200 fire department personnel deployed every day to the event site. They’re planning to increase that number for the upcoming culture event day on Sunday when attendance is expected to increase.
The heat wave picked up in late July, with 18 reported deaths from heat-related illnesses since May 20, according to the country’s disease control and prevention agency. The deaths far exceed those over the same period last year, when six people died from heat-related illnesses, the agency said.
