World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) Monday he announced that the international rally underway in South Korea these days will end early and that all the approximately 40,000 participants will be evacuated to other areas of the country. The decision was made by the South Korean government due to the risks due to the imminent arrival of typhoon Khanun. The typhoon is currently about 330 kilometers northeast of the Japanese island of Okinawa, and is expected to make landfall in South Korea on Thursday morning, bringing winds in excess of 150 kilometers per hour.
The gathering, called World Scout Jamboree, is organized once every four years: this year’s edition is the twenty-fifth and involves over 150 countries with 43,000 young people mainly between the ages of 14 and 18, of which about 1,200 from Italy . The scout camp was set up with hundreds of tents over an area of over 8 square kilometers with few trees and shaded spaces in Saemangeum, Buan Region, a city southwest of Seoul.
It started on Tuesday 1st August and was supposed to end on 12th August. In recent days there had already been several problems which had led the organizers to speculate about concluding the rally early. Due to the extremely hot, with temperatures between 33 and 38 degrees °C, and high humidity, from the first day the organizers had had to manage hundreds of people who complained of symptoms such as headaches, nausea, dizziness and exhaustion. For this reason, the scout associations of the United Kingdom and the United States had decided to make their groups leave.
Choi Chang-haeng, head of scout camp organization, said on Monday that all participants will be evacuated to more than 340 specially set up sites in regions near Buan. The Italian contingent has announced that the South Korean government has already informed everyone of the imminent evacuation, and that more details will be provided shortly on the departure plans and on the places that will host the participants.