BEIJING, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- A Hainan Airlines aircraft carrying 212 Chinese travellers who had been stranded in Egypt arrived in South China's Guangzhou City at 6:37 p.m. Tuesday, said a posting on the airline's official microblog.
The news came after an Air China aircraft carrying 268 Chinese nationals stranded in Egypt arrived in Beijing about two hours earlier.
Among the people arriving at the Beijing International Airport, one day before the Spring Festival, or the Chinese lunar New Year, which falls on Thursday, was Li Shujuan, a teacher at Beijing No. 13 Middle School.
"Although we were stranded at the Cairo Airport for two and a half days, the Chinese embassy sent us water and food on a regular basis, and told us we would definitely be brought back to Beijing before the Spring Festival," she said.
"China has attached great importance to the safety of stranded Chinese nationals since demonstrations and protests broke out in Egypt," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei at a regular news briefing.
Hong said the government had taken a series of emergency measures, including issuing a warning against travel to Eygpt and a round-the-clock hotline to provide consular assistance to Chinese nationals.
He said a taskforce of officials from the Foreign Ministry, the National Tourism Administration, the Ministry of Public Security and the Civil Aviation Administration were working with the Chinese embassy in Cairo to provide assistance to stranded Chinese and to facilitate their early return to China.
After the 480 Chinese returned, more than 400 Chinese are still stranded in Cairo's airport in addition to another 300 staying at hotels in the city.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), China's aviation authority, said in a statement earlier Tuesday that China had arranged six flights to take stranded Chinese nationals home.
At 5:07 p.m., a China Southern Airlines aircraft took off from Guangzhou for Luxor, Egypt, to collect another 178 Hong Kong and 60 mainland people.
The flight was delayed while applications were made for landing permission and approval from the countries it will fly over, said a posting on the airline's official microblog.
An earlier posting said the flight was scheduled to leave Guangzhou at 11 a.m., then it was postponed to 4 p.m., before being rescheduled again.
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