China expands travel restrictions to contain epidemic as death toll hits 56

China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000, as the United States and France prepared to evacuate their citizens from a quarantined city at the outbreak’s epicentre.

China has locked down the hard-hit province of Hubei in the country’s centre in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people to slow the spread of a respiratory illness that President Xi Jinping said posed a “grave” threat.

Outside the epicentre, four cities — including Beijing and Shanghai, and the eastern province of Shandong — announced bans on long-distance buses from entering or leaving their borders, a move that will affect millions of people travelling over the Lunar New Year holiday.

Originating in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan, the virus has spread throughout China and around the world — with cases confirmed in around a dozen countries as distant as the United States.

The US State Department said Sunday it was arranging a flight from Wuhan to San Francisco for consulate staff and other Americans in the city.

The flight is on Tuesday, it said in an email to Americans in China that warned of “extremely limited” capacity for private citizens.

France’s government and the French carmaker PSA also said they were formulating plans to evacuate staff and families, who will be quarantined in a city in a neighbouring province.

A Japanese official told AFP its government was exploring options for getting its nationals out, and South Korea’s consulate in Wuhan said it was conducting an online poll of its citizens there to gauge demand for a chartered flight out.

– Fear in Wuhan –

Instead of New Year revelry, Wuhan has been seized by an eerie calm that deepened on Sunday as new restrictions banned most road traffic in the metropolis of 11 million.

Loudspeakers broke the silence by offering tips slathered with bravado.