China Crisis Deepens, Toll Climbs To 56

South Korea, US and France will evacuate their citizens in Wuhan

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China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2000, 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.