BANGKOK, March 31./TASS/. A second plane carrying more than 170 Russian tourists stranded on the Philippines’ islands of Boracay and Luzon due to restrictive measures over the coronavirus pandemic, has touched down in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, Spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in the Philippines Nataliya Linovitskaya told TASS on Tuesday.
According to her, a plane of Russia’s Yakutia carrier took off from Kalibo International Airport at 8:00 local time, heading for Vladivostok. "There were 171 passengers on board, including three children. The plane first boarded 42 people from Manila, and then 129 people from the island of Boracay," Linovitskaya explained.
"As of now, several dozen Russian nationals remain in the Philippines. Part of them refused to return on charter flights," the spokesperson said.
On March 27, another plane evacuated 457 people to Moscow from Cebu who had failed to leave the Philippines on their own due to the quarantine measures. A second plane was expected to arrive in the country early on March 30 to fly back to Moscow on the same day. However, the takeoff was postponed because of an incident at the airport of Manila.
At the moment, the Philippines confirms over 2,000 coronavirus cases with 88 fatalities. Forty-nine people have recovered. A six-month state of emergency was declared in the republic earlier due to a quick pace of the spread of the virus. Air and sea communication between Manila and provinces of the country was stopped, and curfew was enforced between 20:00 and 05:00.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 786,600 people have been infected worldwide and over 37,800 have died, while more than 165,800 have recovered.