An Air New Zealand flight carrying 198 people from Wuhan has landed in Auckland.
The flight touched down on Wednesday, with passengers from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands immediately taken to Whangaparaoa military base for a 14-day quarantine.
The 35 Australians on board were taken directly to Christmas Island, a former off-shore detention facility, to join the 72 people taken there on board a Qantas fight from the coronavirus epicentre.
An Air New Zealand flight (pictured) carrying 198 people from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, has landed in Auckland
The flight (pictured) touched down on Wednesday and passengers from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands were immediately taken to Whangaparaoa military base for a 14-day quarantine
So far, there have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus infection among the men, women and children already on the island, where they are being held for up to two weeks.
A team of specialist doctors and nurses is closely monitoring the evacuees.
Up to 600 Australians initially registered for the evacuation flights home but some have decided to remain in Wuhan. It is not clear how many will join the next flight.
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said the plan was for passengers to be isolated in small family groups on Christmas Island.
‘There won’t be a full mingling,’ he said in Canberra on Monday.
‘If someone does get unwell their family might have to start again for 14 days but we wouldn’t want to expose the whole group to that.’
However since the first evacuees landed on Christmas Island the escapees have been left than impressed by the conditions.
Evacuees claim they are now being forced to stay in cockroach-infested rooms, with some of the 84 children on the island ‘too scared to touch their beds’.
The 35 Australians on board the flight were taken directly to Christmas Island, a former off-shore detention facility. Pictured: Australians already under quarantine on the island
‘The hygiene issues make it worse than a prison. I understood that there would be very limited facilities here, but the actual condition is no facilities at all,’ evacuee Belinda Chen told the ABC.
Ms Chen, who is staying at the centre with her two kids, said the conditions were ‘thousands of times worse’ than what she imagined.
‘I felt sick when I walked into the bathroom, there were bugs and flies everywhere,’ she said.
Another evacuee said it felt like they were being treated like ‘a group of animals’.
‘It’s even more dangerous than staying in Wuhan, it is life-threatening conditions here, it is worse than self-isolation in Wuhan,’ the person, who chose to remain anonymous, said.
There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in New Zealand at this stage
Other families claimed the cots provided for their babies were dirty and the linen hadn’t been washed.
Photos of the housing unit show plain steel bunk beds with mini fridges and shelving, while the shared bathrooms have metal toilets with plastic lids.
Another woman said the facility looked ‘completely different’ from the photos evacuees were shown by the Government.
The evacuees were given a brochure written in simplified Chinese saying they would be provided with ‘every facility and service’ they needed while on the island.
Australians were also evacuated from the city earlier this week before being taken to Christmas Island
Some evacuees have struggled to get in contact with their families as there is little to no mobile reception on the island, which is located 1500km west of mainland Australia.
A $10 credit for the centre’s phones was handed out to the evacuees in case they needed a doctor in the middle of the night.
But others said the state of the facility were ‘acceptable’ and ‘very simple but clean’.
Sydney resident Gloria Zeng said there was a large courtyard with grass for kids to run around on.
She also said staff painted a welcome sign to greet the evacuees with when they arrived in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
However – it is unlikely many more will be joining them.
The prime minister warned Australians still in Wuhan that a second assisted evacuation flight home could possibly be the last.
Evacuees claim they are now being forced to stay in cockroach-infested rooms, with some of the 84 children on the island ‘too scared to touch their beds’
‘What I want to tell people is that they can’t count on a further flight beyond that,’ he told Nine Network.
The details of the second evacuation flight are still to be negotiated with Chinese authorities.
The death toll from coronavirus in China has now passed 490, while there are now more than 24,000 confirmed cases on the mainland.
There are no confirmed cases of the virus in New Zealand.
Australia confirmed a 13th case of the illness on Tuesday after an eight-year-old boy in Queensland was confirmed to have the illness.
He was part of a tour group where two other people, both in their 40s, were diagnosed with coronavirus.
All three are in a stable condition at Gold Coast University Hospital.