One of the world's busiest airports has turned into a ghost town as passengers stay away amid coronavirus fears.
Beijing International Airport was almost completely deserted yesterday evening, as shown by chilling photos taken by a passenger.
Suzan Tokdemir, 51, took the pictures after travelling on an almost-empty flight into the Chinese capital city from Hong Kong.
In one photo, which Suzan took on-board the Hong Kong Airlines flight, two members of the cabin crew can be seen wearing clinical masks over their mouths while they serve refreshments from the trolley.
Another photo shows only three people outside the airport in a space that is usually very crowded.
The airport in the Chinese capital city has ranked second-busiest airport in the world every year since 2010 and usually sees between 90 and 100 million passengers pass through it a year.
Suzan, who teaches English at an international middle school in Beijing, said: "It was quite eerie. It's not what you'd expect at Beijing Airport.
"It took me 15 minutes from getting off the plane to standing outside the front of the airport - that included collecting my luggage, passport check, fingerprint scan, everything.
"On the flight, there were only about 50 passengers. I looked around as was getting off the plane, and I estimated there can't have been much more than 50 people.
"It was one of the big planes, with eight seats across in a row, but they put us all at the back of the plane - the front half of the plane was completely empty.
"All the flight attendants were masked, and most of the passengers were too. They took them off to eat the food and then put them straight back on.
"Before we got off, they came round and disinfected the plane, and there was an announcement telling people to declare any symptoms they might have," Suzan added.
Suzan, who left Phuket, Thailand on Friday morning, and flew back to Beijing via Bangkok and Hong Kong, said it was "spooky" to see the numbers dwindle on each of her connecting flights.
"Even at Hong Kong airport, almost everyone was masked," she said.
"At Beijing International Airport, we had to keep taking our masks off, so that our faces could be identified - which sort of defeats the point."
She added that even the motorway in Beijing was "empty", saying: "Usually you can hardly move on the motorway. The coronavirus has emptied Beijing.
"I had hired a driver to take me home, and he got stopped by masked police on the way back and had his temperature checked.
"It was really spooky, it was like something out of a sci-fi movie," said Suzan.
Suzan, who is due to return to work on February 7, after four weeks off to mark Chinese New Year, said that some of her colleagues, who have left the country during the break, are unsure about whether to return.
"We're just not getting enough information about it," she said.
"We're being told by the school that they can't give anyone accurate information until later in the week - because there are things the government are not declaring."
