IAF’s evacuation flight to Wuhan delayed as coronavirus death toll in China jumps to 2,118

Mangalore Today News Network

Bejing, Feb 20, 2020: Indian Air Force’s flight, which was scheduled to fly to China on Thursday (February 20) to evacuate the remaining Indian citizens from Wuhan, has been delayed "due to technical reasons". Sources told Zee Media that the Indians in Wuhan, which is the epicentre of coronavirus outbreak, have been informed about the delay, Zee reported.

 

The development comes at a time when 114 new deaths were reported until Wednesday night in mainland China, taking the death toll from coronavirus outbreak to 2,118. Chinese health officials, however, said on Thursday (February 20)that the mainland reported the “biggest drop in new novel coronavirus infections in almost a month”, with 394 new confirmed cases. According to Chinese health officials, the total number of confirmed infections in the country has now jumped to 74,576.

On Tuesday (February 18), the government had announced that a C-17 military aircraft will fly to Wuhan in China on Thursday to evacuate more Indians. The C-17 Globemaster, the biggest military aircraft in the Indian Air Force, was also supposed to carry a large consignment of medical supplies to China.

Meanwhile, all 248 people at an Army camp in Manesar and another batch of 100 at an Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) facility, quarantined at these two places after being evacuated from Wuhan earlier in February, were discharged on Tuesday. All 248 persons, mostly students, who were quarantined at the Army camp left for their homes after being declared fit on Tuesday. "All of them have tested negative for the respiratory virus in the subsequent tests after the completion of the 14-day quarantine period," an official source said.

A total of 647 Indians and seven Maldivians were evacuated from Wuhan on February 1 and 2 in two 747 Boeing Air India aircraft after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in China and kept at the two quarantine facilities.