Tens of thousands of young scouts to evacuate world jamboree in South Korea as storm looms

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 the capital city, Seoul, and the nearby metropolitan area, he said.

Officials were trying to secure spaces at government training centres and education facilities as well as hotels. Kim said it would take six hours or more to evacuate the scouts from the campsite, which organizers said will no longer be used for any event after they leave.

Officials at Camp Humphreys, a major U.S. military base 70 kilometres 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 about the evacuations came after the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) said it called on South Korea to quickly 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."

The Canadian contingent posted WOSM's call for expediting plans for departure on its Instagram account Monday.

The jamboree is held every four years, and scouts aged 14 to 17 were to attend the latest gathering from Aug. 1 to Aug. 12. Scouts Canada says it has 235 youth and 143 volunteers attending.

The largest contingent is from the U.K. with about 4,500 participants, while the U.S. has about 1,000.

South Korea's government did not immediately specify any venues where the scouts will 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.

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 108 km/h, with higher 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 118 to 154 km/h. Large swaths of the country's south, including Buan, could be affected by the storm as early as Wednesday, the agency said.