Passengers begin leaving coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise liner as quarantine ends

A passenger is surrounded by the media after she disembarked from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship on Wednesday
AP

Passengers on the coronavirus-hit cruise ship in Japan have begun to disembark after their two-week quarantine came to an end.

The Diamond Princess, operated by Carnival Corp, has been quarantined after arriving in the port of Yokohama on February 3.

More than 540 people have been infected with the virus on the liner, which originally carried some 3,700 people.

Before passengers were told they could leave on Wednesday, the UK Foreign Office said British nationals on board could be flown home “later this week”.

Officials have begun letting passengers leave the cruise ship
AP

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said it is planning a chartered flight from Tokyo for “as soon as possible”.

“We hope the flight will be later this week, subject to permissions from the Japanese authorities,” a spokesman said on Tuesday night.

"We have the utmost concern for the affected Britons and strongly encourage them to register for the evacuation flight."

A health worker in a protective suit walks near the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship on Wednesday
AP

The spokesman said: "At 7am local time on Wednesday (10pm Tuesday, UK time), the Diamond Princess cruise operator and Japanese authorities allowed passengers to disembark from the cruise ship," the spokesman said.

"However there is a chance that people who disembark will not be able to join the evacuation flight."

Coronavirus: Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined

1/24

Many of those on board who have been infected with coronavirus have already been transferred to hospitals.

Japan has come under fire for its handling of the cruise ship quarantine.

Around 500 people were expected to disembark starting Wednesday, a health ministry official said, with the entire process completed by Friday.

The US evacuated more than 300 nationals on Monday on two chartered flights.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday there were 220 Australians on board and that a total of 169 would be evacuated.

Those evacuated will be flown to Darwin, where they will be quarantined for 14 days.

A captain's announcement on the liner said that Hong Kong passengers would also be evacuated over the next 24 hours.

The captain also said that according to information received, a Canadian charter flight would arrive on Friday morning.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in