Anxious foreigners await rescue from China virus epicentre
Anxious foreigners in the locked-down city that spawned China's deadly viral epidemic say they are stranded at home, running out of food and desperate to leave, as governments scrambled to draw up evacuation plans.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.Several other large cities in China have introduced their own travel restrictions in a bid to contain the disease, which has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000 others."In the past week we've not been able to go out and buy anything to eat," said Mashal Jamalzai, a political science student from Afghanistan at Central China Normal University.He told AFP that he and his classmates had been living on biscuits, and his embassy had not responded to requests for help."We want to be evacuated as soon as possible, because either the virus, the hunger or the fear will kill us," Jamalzai said.Thousands of foreign students and other international residents live in Wuhan, a normally bustling transport hub in central China 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 says 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," she said.Mawaddah said she had heard the United States plans to evacuate consular staff and some American citizens living in the city, and hoped her own government could do the same.
