Chinese nationals help stranded passengers get to airport in Japan

Liu Danhong, a Chinese who has lived in Japan for years, worked with her Japanese colleagues and risked their health to drive Hong Kong passengers who were quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship to the airport to fly home.

Liu has been living in Japan since 1995. A week ago, she received a request from the Chinese embassy in Japan to help evacuate the Hong Kong passengers.

The embassy told her that the Hong Kong government would send a chartered plane to evacuate the passengers on the cruise ship, but it could not find a transport vehicle from the port of Yokohama to Haneda Airport. It had to ask help from overseas Chinese in Japan.

The ship, quarantined in the port since Feb 3, has had 621 people on board infected by the novel coronavirus by Thursday. Of the 312 Chinese on board, 261 were from Hong Kong, five from Macao, 25 from Taiwan and 21 from the Chinese mainland, according to Fjsen news portal.

"I hesitated when I first received the request," Liu admitted. "After all, the coronavirus spreads fast. Transporting the passengers from the ship might influence my workers' health and the company's operations."

She first contacted dozens of car rental companies that had business with her company. But after making many phone calls during the weekend, only three companies agreed to drive five buses to send the passengers.

However, the three companies all rejected the business on Monday with the soaring number of infected patients on the ship.

"I had no other options but to dispatch all the buses of my tour bus company," said Liu. "I held a meeting immediately to ask help from the workers. As expected, many of them hesitated, saying that they must discuss with their family members."

"I said sincerely to them that my people were having difficulties in Japan. I asked them to understand my feelings that I wanted to try my best to offer help."

"Due to my sincerity and the long-existing friendship between the peoples of the two countries, 13 bus drivers and 10 workers at the company finally agreed to join the task."

On Wednesday night, Liu and her colleagues in 13 buses waited in the port for hours in the chilly wind. They managed to transport the first batch of 106 Hong Kong passengers to the airport, who landed in Hong Kong around 8:50 am on Thursday. The second batch of stranded passengers took a chartered flight to Hong Kong at 11 pm on Thursday.