The Chinese city of Wuhan, Huanggang and Ezhou, — the center of a viral outbreak that has killed at least 17 people and infected more than 600 people— has been locked down.
As of 10 a.m. Thursday morning local time, public transport had been totally shut off in Wuhan City.
Chinese government authorities on Thursday morning moved to shut off transportation in and out of Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed 17 people and infected hundreds. Authorities put two more cities, Huanggang and Ezhou, under a travel ban later on Thursday.
The three cities have a combined population of almost 20 million.
The Hubei Huanggang New-type Coronavirus Pneumonia Prevention and Control Command, a task force set up to deal with the crisis, said in a statement that at midnight, the city's subway and train stations will close, per a report in the People's Daily, a state-run newspaper.
All theaters, internet cafes and indoor public culture, tourism and entertainment facilities in the city will also stop business, People's Daily reported.
Like Wuhan, Huanggang is located on the banks of the Yangtze River. The entire administrative area of Huanggang has a population of 7.5 million, but People's Daily reported that the lockdown only applies to the urban area, which is only a part of the total population.
Buses, planes, subways, and ferries had been shut down in the city of nearly19 million people, a measure without precedent in its sweeping scale.
Residents in the city were told not to enter or leave, even using their own transportation, without an overwhelmingly good reason to do so. All organized public gatherings have been canceled.
A row of Chinese soldiers block the entrance to the central Hankou Station in Wuhan, China, after the government put the city in lockdown. The Paper/Twitter
Foreign news correspondents described driving out of the city before the deadline hit.
Janis Mackey Frayer of NBC News said that she and her colleagues left before dawn on Thursday. Tom Cheshire of Sky News also described leaving by road. He said his driver believed the roads were closed behind them.
Spreading quickly from its epicenter in the city of Wuhan, a potentially lethal virus has sickened hundreds around China and reached the U.S., Japan and South Korea. Photo: Yonhap News/Zuma Press
It came as new officials figures showed the scale of the disease, a coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV, had continued to spread.
The latest update, accurate to midnight Wednesday, said that 571 cases had been recorded in China, 17 of which have proven fatal.
On the Chinese social network Weibo, the top trending topic was #WuhanLockdown, according to The New York Times.
Footage of the city just after the lockdown was published on Twitter by The Paper, a Chinese-language digital news outlet.
Mask-wearing passengers in Shanghai catch one of the final trains into Wuhan before a lockdown was imposed on January 23, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
Inside a ticket hall, a departure board showed a sea of red with blanked-out destinations. Ticket booths were shuttered and automated machines seemed not to work.
A woman in Wuhan, China, takes a selfie in front of barricades erected to enforce a lockdown at the city's Hankou railway station. The Paper/Twitter
Inside the city, officials insisted on mandatory face masks in public places, and encouraged people to report anyone not using a mask to the authorities, according to the outlet Sixth Tone.
According to the Reuters news agency, people left in Wuhan rushed to grocery stores to stockpile supplies, but found many shelves empty of staples like meat, vegetables, and instant noodles. Some stores raised prices to capitalize on the extra demand.
A departure board in Wuhan, China, shows a row of blank destinations after authorities suspended public transit on January 23, 2020. The Paper/Twitter
Experts cited by The New York Times said that cutting off an entire city the size of Wuhan has never been attempted before.
Wuhan has a similar population to New York City, but is an even more significant transit hub given its central location in China.
Residents of Wuhan line up as they await for the soonest departures out the city that is ground zero for the new Coronavirus
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This article first appeared on Business Insider.
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