KOCHI: Amidst the panic caused by the coronavirus outbreak, 17 medical students from India - 16 from Kerala and one from Trichy, Tamil Nadu - are trapped at Kunming Changshui international airport in Southwest China's Yunnan province from the early hours of Thursday with no food and funds to survive.
The students are afraid to return to the medical college hostel as around 40 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported thereafter which the authorities have imposed restrictions.
According to Anita, a native of Ernakulam doing house surgency at Dali University in Yunnan, the students reached the airport at China Standard Time 5.30 am to catch a flight to Singapore from where they had booked a ticket to Thiruvananthapuram. However, when they reported for check-in, the airport staff said only Singapore nationals are allowed to travel to that country due to the emergency situation. Though the students pleaded with the airport authorities and flight operations manager, they were helpless.
"We had booked our tickets for a Scoot Airlines flight from Yunnan to Singapore on Thursday. As the demand is high we paid a double charge for the tickets. But we were denied permission to board the flight and the airlines did not refund the ticket charge. We don't have money to book tickets for another flight and don't even have money to purchase food. It is 9 pm now and we didn't get any food after 5 am," Anita told TNIE.
Though the students contacted the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA) for help, the authorities said they have limitations in providing help to find a return flight. "The NORKA authorities offered to purchase tickets for a Friday flight. But we have to travel to Hong Kong to board the flight and Hong Kong is not allowing transit passengers. The flight charges are soaring and we have run out of resources. We cannot return to the college hostel as the college canteen has run out of resources. The city is completely shut down and there is scarcity of essentials," said Anita.
Though the students had decided to leave the country two weeks ago, the journey was delayed as they had visa problems. "Our visa will expire on February 28 and we had to renew it before leaving the country. We got the renewed visa only on February 3 and we booked the tickets on the same day itself," she said.
The students staying at Kunming airport are Anita Poduthas (Ernakulam), Aparna Babu, Ramya, Nithin Sanjay (T'Puram), Azeeza Ali (Ernakulam), Keerthana Rani, Naureen, Kannan Babu, Abhinand, Mohammed Rizwan (Kollam), Chitra. Abdul Naif, Shilpa (Alappuzha), Vivek Mathai, Naveen Thankachan (Adimali), Chackochan Thomas (Kozhikode) and Bhuvana (Trichy, TN).
They have contacted the Indian Embassy at Beijing seeking help for evacuation.