A planeload of about 200 French citizens from the virus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan has landed in southern France.
ADVERTISEMENTA British evacuation jet from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus in China, landed at Brize Norton military base in the UK around 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday.
"At 9:45 a.m. (local time), a civilian aircraft chartered by the Foreign Office carrying 83 British and 27 foreign nationals left Wuhan for the UK," the Foreign Office said in a statement.
According to British media reports, there should have been more passengers on the plane but several people complained that they were informed too late to make it on time to the airport.
French, German evacuations
A French evacuation flight from Wuhan also landed in southern France on Friday with some 200 passengers onboard.
The flight landed around 12.30 p.m. CET on the military base of Istres, near the city of Marseille, AFP news agency reported.
One of the passengers showed symptoms of the disease and has been transferred to a local hospital to be tested, the French Minister for Health said.
The other will be placed in quarantine for two weeks in a summer resort.
The French government requisitioned the resort, over objections from the mayor. The resort is little-used in the winter, and the mayor said it was chosen because it’s secluded and accessible only by one private road, and a private beach.
Mayor Jean Montagnac held a news conference Friday to try to calm residents worried about the potential spread of the virus.
Germany also announced that a Wuhan-bound air force plane had left Cologne at around midday local time on Friday. The plane, with a capacity of more than 200, is scheduled to be back in the country on Saturday afternoon.
Passengers will then be transferred to an Air Force training facility in Germersheim, some 130 km south of Frankfurt.