'Our only request to the Indian government is that they should act fast and send a plane to evacuate us as people around us are dying.'
Neha Yadav, a resident of Etah in Uttar Pradesh, arrived in Wuhan, China, on November 3, 2018 after marrying Ashish Yadav, an associate professor at the Wuhan Textile University there.
Calamity struck after the outbreak of coronavirus in Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic, where Wuhan is located.
Neha, a PhD student at Wuhan University, and her husband Ashish spoke to Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf from Wuhan and described their uncertain existence as people around them die.
Here is their first person account:
Ashish Yadav:
When the government sent the Air India plane to evacuate Indian citizens, my wife and I could not leave because my wife had minor surgery.
The doctors in China told us she should avoid traveling to India and this operation had nothing to do with the coronavirus.
Moreover, the Indian embassy in Beijing told us an Air India flight would reach Wuhan on February 5 to evacuate more Indians, so we thought we would catch that flight to return to India.
But after back to back Air India flights to Wuhan on January 31, 2020 and February 1, 2020, the airline halted operations to evacuate Indian citizens.
We were told another flight would arrive after 3 days, but that did not happen.
Later, we came to know that another Air India flight would come to Wuhan on February 10 to evacuate us, but that did not happen.
So we are stuck in Wuhan.
At present, the situation is very bad in Wuhan.
Almost 1,000 people have died due to coronavirus. 35,000 people are in severe condition. Another 32,000 people are infected with coronavirus.
The situation in Wuhan is very grim.
We are clueless what the future holds for us.
We are not getting any information about our journey back to India.
WATCH: Neha and Ashish appeal Indian government to help them evacuate from Wuhan
We are continuously calling the Indian embassy in Beijing and tweeting about our plight.
At present, 80 Indians are trapped in Wuhan. All these people came to Wuhan for jobs.
There are no Indian students left in Wuhan, so all of us have said we want to come back to India at our own expense, but still we are not getting any response from the government.
We just want transport to travel from our house which we are not getting.
The Chinese government has locked down Wuhan completely.
No vehicle is moving in the city.
No one is allowed to come out of their buildings.
There are only nine people in my building. We are the only 2 Indians in this building.
Neha Ashish Yadav:
We run out of food all the time. It is only now that we got some food as our office dean helped us get some vegetables.
At this moment we have something to eat.
We are not allowed to leave our building. From January 22, we have been locked in our homes.
The police is roaming around and ensuring that no one comes out of their homes.
We talk daily to officials at the Indian embassy, but we have not got any positive response from them about our evacuation yet.
We are in touch with 80 other Indians on WeChat.
We have made a group and updating about everyone's well-being.
Right now, no Indian is infected with coronavirus.
All are well, but we are not allowed to leave this city.
There is no taxi, metro trains, or any kind of transport in Wuhan.
There is a complete lockdown.
The situation is worse than a curfew.
When news broke out about the coronavirus, we were told that this virus affected a human being for 14 days after which a person gets cured.
We never imagined that the situation would become so bad.
Life is looking very bleak at this moment.
Yesterday, there was no flour at our home. We asked for flour on one WeChat group.
The flour arrived, along with a team of 15 people that included doctors and police.
They checked our body temperature and only then left.
I am hearing that more people around my area are getting infected with coronavirus, therefore this is more worrying news for us.
One girl from Andhra Pradesh, Jyoti, is staying alone in a dormitory. She is 22 years old. She was to get married on February 14, but is now stuck in Wuhan.
The only solace is I am in touch with my family. They are worried and wondering when we are going to come back.
They are trying to reach out to India's external affairs ministry so that they can help us get out of Wuhan.
We are tweeting constantly to S Jaishankar (India's external affair minister).
Eighty other Indians are tweeting to him, but there is no response from ther minister.
Our only request to the Indian government is that they should act fast and send a plane to evacuate us as people around us are dying.
