The anxiety of parents of children and other passengers, who were stranded at Kuala Lumpur, turned into joy as the Kuala Lumpur – Visakhapatnam flight landed at the airport here on Wednesday evening. All 185 passengers were cleared at the airport screening facility and sent back to their houses and advised self-quarantine.
District Collector V. Vinay Chand, who was supervising the operation, said: “We were fully prepared to handle any suspected cases. Luckily, all the passengers came under Category C and were sent home.”
The two-hour wait outside the airport seemed endless for the parents. Some of the women broke down as they were not sure whether the children would be sent home or quarantined at hospitals. The sight of ambulances and special buses added to their apprehensions.
The students were studying medicine in the Philippines. Their college had declared a shutdown in view of the COVID-19 threat and had asked foreign students to return to their respective countries. The students reached Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, but they were told that flights were cancelled.
KM Sundaram of Kakinada whose son Bhavani Shankar, who is in the 1st year medicine, said: “My son told that the threat of COVID-19 was comparatively less in the Philippines but the cancellation of flights was causing anxiety among students.
Ms. Prasanna Lakshmi of Kakinada was seen weeping as the process of testing took a long time. Anxiety was writ large on the face of Y. Mallibabu of Kovvur in West Godavari district as he awaited the arrival of his daughter Satyakaveswari.
“We had no sleep for the past three days as news of the growing COVID-19 threat continued to pour in from around the world. My daughter Bhavana and my sister’s daughter Sravanthi are both pursuing medicine,” said Sri Phani of Kakinada.
Jagan, Centre thanked
The parents thanked the Jagan Mohan Reddy government and the government of India for coordinating with the authorities in Philippines and arranged the special flight to bring back the stranded students from AP. They also thanked Rajya Sabha member V. Vijaya Sai Reddy for taking up the issue with the Centre from time to time.
Siva, a native of Vizianagaram, employed in Singapore, also returned by the same flight and was among the first to come out of the airport. “They issued the boarding passes for the ‘rescue flight’ to us at 4 p.m. today,” he said.
“Of the 185 passengers, who arrived by the special flight, 91 are from AP, 10 from Telangana, one from Odisha, 77 from Tamil Nadu, one from Kerala, two from Karnataka and three from Maharastra,” Police Commissioner RK Meena said.
