Coronavirus: Special Air India flight to airlift stranded Indians from Wuhan lands in India today
New
Delhi,
Feb
01:
The
first
batch
of
Indian
passengers
in
Air
India
special
flight
that
will
take
off
from
Wuhan,
China
will
reach
India
on
Saturday.
The
special
flight
will
evacuate
a
large
number
of
Indians
stranded
at
the
epicentre
of
the
deadly
coronavirus-hit
Wuhan.
reportedly,
the
flight
arrived
at
Wuhan's
Tianhe
International
Airport
on
Friday
evening.
The death toll in China due to the outbreak of coronavirus has reached 213 and it has infected around 9,692 people so far.
UN health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak of coronavirus an international emergency.
Over, 20 countries, including India, the UK, US, South Korea, Japan and France, have reported confirmed cases of the virus in travellers coming from China.
India on Thursday declared to operate two flights from the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus-hit Wuhan to airlift around 400 students stranded in Hubei province. Wuhan is the provincial capital of Hubei province.
Over 700 Indians were stranded will be airlifted today. Most of them went for home earlier to avail the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival Holidays. More of them are medical students and research scholars.
WHO declares novel coronavirus as global health emergency
On Friday, the Indian Army has set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi to keep the Indian students who will be evacuated from China.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has also set up over 600-bed facility in southwest Delhi's Chhawla area.