Asia

Home page

Asia

Turkish plane carrying evacuees from China's Wuhan arrives in Ankara - VIDEO

01 February 2020 22:17 (UTC +04:00)

A military cargo plane arrived in Ankara carrying Turkish citizens who were evacuated from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of a deadly coronavirus outbreak, APA reports citing Anadolu Agency.

The Turkish Armed Forces' A400M-type aircraft departed from Wuhan on Saturday airlifting 42 people, including 32 Turks and 10 people from Azerbaijan, Albania and Georgia.

The passengers' health conditions are reportedly good and their oxygen levels and body temperature normal, officials told an Anadolu Agency reporter on board.

With 11 military personnel, six health employees, two press members and one Foreign Ministry representative on board, the plane landed in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, at 3 p.m. local time, to replenish its fuel storage.

The plane completed its refueling in one hour and arrived in Turkey at around 9 p.m. local time (GMT +3).

The evacuees were screened by Turkish health officials including a team of six experts assigned to run blood tests and health checks to eliminate the potential risk of the virus spreading to Turkey. If any of the passengers showed any symptoms of the virus during the flight, they would have been taken to a designated area inside the plane.

Six of the 48 people decided of their own will not to return to Turkey, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca Saturday said on Twitter.

During the health checks, no symptoms were observed in any passenger, Koca underlined.

All who traveled on the plane will be transferred to a hospital in Ankara where they will be quarantined for 14 days in line with the virus' incubation period. All evacuees were informed about the process in Turkey.

Turkish citizens were happy about being evacuated on the plane and some expressed gratitude to Turkey.

"Our Foreign Ministry and Embassy in China have expended great efforts in order to bring us home. We were having a tough time and felt like we didn't know what to do. I am very pleased to be here right now," one Turkish passenger told Anadolu Agency.

The plane also delivered medical equipment – dispatched by Turkey's state-run aid and development agency (TIKA) and Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) – to China.

The coronavirus, so named because of its resemblance to a crown when viewed under a microscope, has killed at least 259 people in China, with nearly 12,000 infected. More than 118,000 people are currently under medical observation.

Since the outbreak began late last year, China has put the city of Wuhan under lockdown in a bid to contain the virus and is building a 1,000-bed hospital to treat those infected.

Beyond China, the virus has spread to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the U.S., Singapore, France, Germany, Italy, Vietnam and Canada.

Travelers from China are being screened for the virus at airports worldwide. Several airlines have suspended flights to Wuhan.