Japanese citizens evacuated from Wuhan, the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak, described an atmosphere of confusion and fear in the Chinese city and expressed relief as they arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday.
A total of 206 Japanese citizens landed at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Wednesday morning, with health professionals carrying out checks on board and at the airport, but no mandatory quarantine was planned.
Five passengers who said they felt unwell were hospitalised on arrival, but there was no confirmation of whether they were infected with the virus.
The flight arrived as several countries worked to extract their nationals from Wuhan, with an American charter flight also leaving the city on Wednesday, bound for an airport in the Los Angeles area.
Takeo Aoyama, a Nippon Steel employee who arrived on the evacuation flight, described confusion in Wuhan, with travel restrictions intended to contain the virus making it hard for those in the epicentre to know what was happening.
"The number of patients began increasing rapidly at a certain point. That was very worrying," he told reporters at the airport.
"We were not able to move freely, so we only had partial information. The restrictions on the flow of goods and transport were extremely strict."