Passengers on Diamond Princess leave as quarantine ends

Beijing : Over hundreds of the passengers, who were stranded on the Diamond Princess ship, started to leave as the quarantine ended.

Meanwhile, the results of some passengers are still pending for their tests against coronavirus, a virus that has killed over 2000 people in China and has infected more than 74000 people till date.

Some passengers said on social media that they were asked to fill up a form which had asked if they had symptoms such as a headache, fever or coughing.

Passengers who had no symptoms and were tested negative to the virus still had to get their body temperature checked before leaving the ship.

Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a face mask and held a cane.

Some of the passengers called taxis to go back home and others boarded buses to reach their destinations. Some people still in their ship cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who had already disembarked.

"I'm a bit concerned if I'm OK to get off the ship, but it was getting very difficult physically," a 77-year-old man from Saitama, near Tokyo, who got off with his wife, told Kyodo News. "For now, we just want to celebrate."