Nepalis evacuated from coronavirus-hit China, sent to quarantine facility in Bhaktapur

Bhaktapur: 175 Nepali nationals evacuated from the coronavirus-hit Chinese province of Hubei have been sent to a quarantine facility set up at Kharipati in Bhaktapur district of the Himalayan country. The Nepalis -- 170 students, one employee, two visitors, and two children -- arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday morning on a chartered flight of National Flag carrier Nepal Airlines. Several of these evacuees took to social media to express their contentment over their return to their homeland, sharing selfies and tweets from the quarantine facilities and sharing updates on Facebook. Meanwhile, after the setting up of quarantine facility in Kharipati, several residents of the region have temporarily left for other cities owing to fears of getting infected. Locals of Kharipati had previously protested over the government's plan to set the quarantine facility in a government-owned building (Training Facility of Nepal Electricity Authority) located in a residential area. Coronavirus first originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has since killed more than 1600 people in that country alone, while cases have been registered in several other countries across the world, including Nepal and India.