LAST PASSENGERS LEAVE CRUISE SHIP IN CAMBODIA

Passengers also leave cruise ship in Japan

REMAINING passengers stuck onboard a cruise ship docked in Cambodia for almost a week left the vessel yesterday after they tested negative for the coronavirus, a government official said.

MS Westerdam, operated by Carnival Corp’s Holland America Line, arrived at the port here on Feb 13, having been turned away at five other ports after leaving Hong Kong, which had reported more than 60 cases of the virus and two deaths.

The ship came under scrutiny amid Cambodia’s quick clearance for passengers to fly home, which was criticised after one American woman who had been on the cruise ship tested positive for the virus over the weekend after a special flight chartered by the cruise reached Malaysia.

Yesterday, a series of cheers went up from people lining the lower deck of the cruise ship and there were several loud blasts of the ship’s horn as passengers began disembarking, 18 days after the ship first left Hong Kong.

“The last 233 passengers on MS Westerdam are disembarked and will continue to Phnom Penh by buses,” said Kheang Phearum, spokesman for Preah Sihanouk province, where Sihanoukville is located.

Holland America Line confirmed in a statement the last passengers had been given health clearances to leave the ship and make their way home.

Upon leaving the vessel, passengers received traditional checkered Cambodian scarves as souvenirs.

The passengers will spend a night in capital Phnom Penh and then fly home, said Sun Chan Thol, Cambodia’s public transport minister.

Holland America said the ship would remain at dock here while hundreds of crew members were being tested.

In Tokyo, passengers on the virus-hit cruise ship moored near here began disembarking yesterday, television footage showed, after a controversial two-week quarantine that saw more than 600 people infected with the coronavirus.

The Diamond Princess, also operated by Carnival Corp, had been quarantined after arriving in the port of Yokohama on Feb 3, after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong before it travelled to Japan was diagnosed with the virus.

A total of 621 people have been infected with the virus on the liner, which originally carried some 3,700 passengers and crew. Many of those infected have already been transfered to hospitals. About half the passengers are Japanese.

Japan ranks second in the world after China in number of confirmed virus due to the ship infections.

Japan has come under fire for its handling of the cruise ship quarantine, although top government officials have defended the quarantine and onboard testing operation.

“Unfortunately, cases of infection have emerged, but we have, to the extent possible, taken steps to prevent serious cases, including sending infected people to hospital,” public broadcaster NHK quoted Health Minister Katsunobu Kato as telling a parliamentary panel.