Two flights carrying over 400 stranded Indians from Doha, Singapore land in Kerala
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, 181 Indian nationals who were stranded in Qatar landed in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, as part of the Vande Bharat Mission, the Centre’s evacuation mission of expatriates. The flight, which was initially planned to reach Trivandrum International Airport on May 10, had been cancelled and hours before it was to take off from India to pick up the stranded people, as Qatar had not granted permission. It was later rescheduled.
Two days later, in the early hours of May 13, passengers have reached India. The Doha-Thiruvananthapuram flight landed at the Trivandrum International Airport at 1 am on Wednesday.
Of the 181 passengers, 18 people are from Tamil Nadu and one from Maharashtra. Rest of the passengers are from various Kerala districts. Most of them, around 51 people, are from Kollam district.
According to the statement by the Thiruvananthapuram District Information Office, a medical screening held in the airport was found that nobody exhibited COVID-19 symptoms.
“One passenger who had come in contact with a COVID-19 patient while being abroad and a pregnant woman whose due date is close have been admitted to hospital,” the statement reads.
The passengers from other Kerala districts were transported to quarantine facilities in their respective districts.
Kerala government has mandated as per the Centre’s guidelines that all the people who return from abroad should undergo compulsory institutional quarantine. After seven days of institutional quarantine, the passengers will have to undergo another seven days home quarantine.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday night at 8.12 pm, an Air India Flight carrying 305 stranded Keralalties left from Singapore and landed at Cochin International Airport Limited. The group also had one person from Tamil Nadu.
According to officials, no one in the group was shifted to hospital as none of them had symptoms of the disease.
In the first phase of the operation to evacuate the stranded expats that started on May 7, Centre has said that 15 flights will land in Kerala.
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