Hong Kong residents who landed at Hong Kong International Airport in one of the chartered flights from Hubei province board a bus to a quarantine facility on Thursday. (PHOTO / INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT)

A two-day operation to evacuate Hong Kong residents stranded in Hubei province — the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic — ended on Thursday with a total of 469 evacuees flown home aboard four chartered flights arranged by the government.

The operation, which began on Wednesday, saw a total of 225 residents returning on two flights on Thursday, joining 244 others who were brought back the previous day. All the residents will be quarantined for 14 days at Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan district, where more than 200 Hong Kong passengers evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan last month were previously quarantined.

A total of 379 evacuees had been trapped in the provincial capital of Wuhan since the city was locked down in late January following the outbreak, while the rest were picked up from other areas in the province.

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip Tak-kuen, who led the operation along with Director of Immigration Tsang Kwok-wai, said on his return that Thursday’s operation had proceeded more smoothly than that of the previous day. The government had earlier said that at least 533 Hong Kong residents could be brought back from Hubei but, according to Nip, 64 people were unable to board the flights for various reasons, including failure to pass the required body temperature tests or a desire to remain in Hubei with their relatives. 

Thursday’s first flight — on a Cathay Dragon aircraft — landed at Hong Kong International Airport at about 4:30 pm, while the second — on a Cathay Pacific jet — touched down at around 9:10 pm, about half an hour behind schedule. The evacuees, wearing face masks and protective clothing, descended down the ramp to be driven away in waiting buses to Chun Yeung Estate under police escort.  

Among them were 14 pregnant women, people requiring urgent medical treatment and students due to take this year’s Diploma of Secondary Education examination, which begins on March 27. They also included a woman and her daughter who had spent more than three hours traveling by bus from Xiangyang city to Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to catch the flight home so that the girl can take the DSE exam.  

Airline employees at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport distribute airplane tickets to stranded Hong Kong residents on Thursday. (PHOTO / INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT)

On his social media page, Nip thanked doctors and nurses from the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority who joined the operation to provide aid to pregnant women and those requiring urgent medical attention.

He said further flights will be arranged “as soon as possible” to bring home an estimated 3,500 other Hong Kong people who are still trapped in about 40 cities scattered across Hubei province.

Among them is a woman in her 10th week of pregnancy who is stranded in Enshi city — about seven hours’ drive from Wuhan —  according to legislator Elizabeth Quat Pui-fan of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. She said the woman had suffered a miscarriage on Thursday afternoon and needs emergency surgery in Hong Kong.

Quat urged the government to send chartered aircrafts to Enshi or Yichang, where about 460 Hong Kong residents are left unattended.

Meanwhile, no new confirmed case of the coronavirus, was reported in Hong Kong on Thursday, with the tally standing at 104. So far, 46 patients have been discharged from hospitals, while 56 are under treatment, including one in critical condition and three in serious condition.

A 69-year-old woman, who first developed symptoms during a tour of India a day before returning to Hong Kong on Feb 24, was confirmed as an imported case. She tested positive for the disease on Wednesday.

Since her return, the patient had reportedly visited banks, restaurants, a wet market and supermarkets in Causeway Bay, Central and Sheung Wan, as well as attending a wedding banquet in Kowloon Tong on Tuesday.

Executive Councilor Lam Ching-choi told China Daily that preventive measures had not been taken earlier as India was not deemed to have been hard-hit by the epidemic. 

He said the woman’s case has raised alarm over Hong Kong’s preventive measures, and urged authorities to strengthen their monitoring of the outbreak around the world.

Contact the writers at jefferygu@chinadailyhk.com