Nearly 400 Taiwan people in Hubei to go home on charter flights

About 400 people from Taiwan who have been struck in Hubei province due to the novel coronavirus outbreak will take arranged flights to return to the island from Wuhan, the outbreak center, the provincial Taiwan affairs office of Hubei said on Tuesday.

The passengers have all tested negative for the virus and undergone at least three rounds of body temperature tests before boarding the planes, the office said.

Because of the lockdown on Hubei to curb the spread of the virus, many Taiwan residents who live in the province, or who are there on a business trip or traveling in Hubei, can't return to the island because all flights have been canceled.

To help them return home, the mainland arranged to put them on charter flights from Wuhan to Taiwan. The first batch of 247 Taiwan residents took a charter flight to Taiwan from Wuhan on Feb 3.

The mainland planned to arrange more trips for other Taiwan residents in Hubei to return home, but it was declined by the island authorities in the past month. As of Sunday, some 1,170 people from Taiwan in Hubei have applied to return to the island, the office said.

Authorities of the two sides finally reached an agreement on Saturday that two flights operated respectively by two air companies of the two sides conducted the return trip of the second batch, according to the office.

Among the people in the second batch, over 40 percent urgently needed to return to the island for treatment, about 30 percent were children, and 23 percent needed to return to work in the island, it said.

At 9:44 pm Tuesday, a flight operated by China Airlines based in Taiwan, carrying 169 people, took off from the Wuhan airport.

The other flight operated by China Eastern Airlines based in the mainland hasn't taken off by Tuesday midnight, according to the office.