MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2020) Japanese authorities are coordinating with China to evacuate its citizens from the Chinese province at the center of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Sunday.
According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Abe said the government worked through the weekend to contact its citizens in the Hubei province and establish their readiness to leave.
Kyodo state news agency said Japanese foreign ministry is in contact with relevant Chinese ministries in order to arrange a charter flight to the quarantined Wuhan to return home its supposedly 710 nationals in the region.
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters that he spoke on the phone with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and asked for cooperation in the investigation.
Motegi said his department has thus far been able to reach 430 people in Hubei, Kyodo reported.
The previously unknown coronavirus has resulted in 56 deaths according to latest official numbers, with over 2,000 confirmed infected. China has taken drastic steps to contain the spread of the virus by placing quarantines on large regional cities and restricting travel across the country and beyond. Internationally, infections with the coronavirus have been detected in South Korea, Japan, France, Portugal, the United States among others.
