WUHAN • Anxious foreigners in Wuhan say they are stranded at home, running out of food and desperate to leave, as governments scrambled to draw up evacuation plans.
The authorities have barred travel to and from Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected before it spread across China and to a dozen other countries, including the United States, France and Australia.
"In the past week, we've not been able to go out and buy anything to eat," said Mr Mashal Jamalzai, a political science student from Afghanistan at Central China Normal University.
He told Agence France-Presse that he and his classmates had been living on biscuits, and his embassy had not responded to requests for help.
Thousands of foreign students and other international residents live in Wuhan, a normally bustling transport hub in central China that is home to a huge steel and auto industry.
But with schools, hospitals and public offices shut and no transport to and from the city, Hubei University student Siti Mawaddah said the city now "looks like a ghost town".
"The situation in Wuhan right now is very intense and worrying," the 25-year-old Indonesian told AFP, adding that the situation had taken a psychological toll on her and her classmates.
"If we stay in Wuhan, it's as if we're just waiting for our turn to get infected."
The US State Department is sending a plane to collect its consular staff and take them to San Francisco, but it warned there would be limited space for the estimated 1,000 Americans living in Wuhan.
France is also planning to evacuate by bus its citizens stuck in Hubei, and French carmaker PSA - which has a sizeable presence in Wuhan - said it was formulating plans to evacuate staff and relatives for quarantine in a neighbouring province.
South Korea's consulate-general in Wuhan conducted a poll yesterday to determine the demand for a chartered plane for its citizens who want to return home, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country would fly out any nationals who wanted to leave.
Sri Lanka said yesterday it would fly back 150 students from China in the next two days, while Australia is working with the Chinese authorities to get its citizens out of Wuhan. Australian Broadcasting Corporation said over 100 Australian children are stuck in the city.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
