About 33,000 Chinese people stranded in Libya are waiting for evacuation, according to a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the North African country.
The Chinese government has launched its largest evacuation plan in recent years to transport Chinese nationals via land, air and sea out of Libya, where a bloody unrest erupted on February 16.
The first charted plane sent by the Chinese government to evacuate its citizens from Libya arrived in Tripoli Thursday morning Beijing time, authorities said.
The second chartered plane, which left Beijing early Thursday morning, carried a joint task group of officials from several ministries and emergency relief materials including food and medicines, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Besides the chartered planes, four ocean liners, hired by Chinese embassies in Greece and Malta, were on their way to waters near Libya, and the Chinese Embassy in Egypt had hired about 100 buses to evacuate Chinese nationals from the country, the ministry said.
A cruise ship dispatched by the Chinese embassy in Malta was expected to reach Libya late Wednesday to evacuate Chinese nationals stranded in the country.
Early Wednesday, 83 Chinese nationals, working as business staff and construction workers of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), were evacuated from Libya to Egypt. They are scheduled to return to China on Thursday.