Shinzo Abe is looking forward to evacuating Japanese nationals from Wuhan. (Image via Euronews)

Japan to evacuate its citizens from pneumonia-stricken Wuhan

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
News Flash Japan
Jan 27, 2020
2003
The Japanese government revealed on Monday that the country will dispatch a chartered plane to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, Central China, to bring back Japanese citizens wishing to go home safe and sound during the novel pneumonia outbreak.

Per Friday last week, about 710 Japanese nationals were registered in Hubei. Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Toshmitsu Motegi, said that 560 Japanese currently live in the province.

The plane would begin its evacuation operation on Tuesday, going back and forth from Narita Airport to Wuhan. Usually, Wuhan is connected to 50 cities around the world, including Tokyo and Osaka. However, the negotiations with the Chinese counterpart is pending.

It is possible that in the name of humanity, Japan will include reliefs and supplies for the infected in Wuhan if China requests so.

All Nippon Airways Co. (ANA) declared that it would suspend all flights from Wuhan for the rest of January due to the novel coronavirus-related pneumonia outbreak.

Wuhan is also known to house automobile manufacturing plants including Nissan Motor Co, Honda Motor Co, and Renault SA. Therefore, Honda Motor Co. said that it would bring back 30 people (its employees with their families) on the chartered plane.

Domestically, the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, will designate the novel pneumonia disease as a “special infectious disease” to make it possible to allocate public funds to provide urgent treatments to the infected patients.

Currently, the 11 million residents of Wuhan are lockdown as the Chinese government is struggling to stop the virus from going viral even further.

Source: https://bit.ly/3aHa2Q5

Politics , Economy , Medical , Health , Evacuation , Pulmonary , Pneumonia , Disease , Outbreak , Coronavirus , Asia , Japan , China