China asks Spring Airlines to retrieve Wuhan residents stranded in Japan

The Chinese Embassy in Japan on Friday asked Shanghai-based Spring Airlines to provide chartered flights to transport Wuhan residents stranded in Japan back to the central Chinese city. The first of such flights will depart Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Saturday, the embassy said in a statement on its website.

Wuhan, the capital of China's central Hubei province, is the epicenter of a fast-spreading virus that has claimed the lives of more than 200 people.