Indian couple stuck in Coronavirus-hit Wuhan seeks govt help for return to country

In a series of video clips, Ashish Yadav, Associate Professor in Wuhan Textile University, has sought the central government's help for arranging his and his wife, Neha's return to India.

Neha work as a PhD scholar there. The couple could not be evacuated earlier this month on Air India flights sent by the centre to Wuhan owing to Neha'r surgery.

About 1700 people have died in China due to the deadly Coronavirus outbreak. The virus has reportedly spread across 25 countries.

In one of the videos shared with NDTV, the couple is seen making an appeal as: "Namaste, my name is Ashish Yadav and this is my wife Neha Yadav. I am an associate professor in the Wuhan Textile University. I appeal to the Prime Minister to evacuate us from here soonest."

They said their parents are worried about them.

In the two-minute video shot from the balcony of the couple's apartment on Sunday afternoon, Ashish shared that they are running out of supplies.

"You can see the weather is very bad today. There is heavy rain and light snowfall since yesterday afternoon. There is no one in our building. Yesterday, I had just a few empty bottles of water (he shows the bottles) and I had appealed for some water to be given and so today (camera pans to new water bottles), I have been sent some water and this food by the authorities here. We have rations only for a few days so I again appeal to the Indian government to evacuate us soonest," he says.

Meanwhile, India on Monday offered to evacuate nationals of neighbouring countries from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic in China, depending on availability of space in the aircraft that would fly back after delivering medical supplies later this week.

The Indian government will send a consignment of medical supplies on a relief flight to Wuhan later this week to support China to fight the COVID-19 epidemic.

Earlier, the central government evacuated 600 Indians from coronavirus-hit Wuhan.