国内英语新闻:Chartered plane carrying Chinese evacuees leaves Malta for Shanghai

LUQA, Malta, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- A chartered plane of China Eastern Airlines carrying 272 Chinese evacuees from Libya left Malta for Shanghai on Saturday.

The Airbus A330-300 plane took off at 8:20 p.m. local time ( 1920 GMT) from the Malta International Airport, to be followed shortly by another chartered plane of China Eastern Airlines with 278 Chinese evacuees on board.

The 550-strong Chinese nationals from a Chinese construction company were among a total of 2,216 people who arrived by a ship from violence-torn Libya at the Grand Harbor in Valletta, capital of Malta, on Saturday.

In addition to the 2,216 Chinese nationals, the ship chartered by the Chinese embassy in Malta also carried dozens of citizens of other countries.

The vessel, which was the first Maltese ship chartered by the Chinese government to evacuate Chinese nationals, left Libya's Benghazi on Friday.

Maltese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tonio Borg, who went aboard the ship, expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for helping to evacuate some Maltese nationals from Libya.

Chinese Ambassador to Malta Zhang Keyuan also thanked the Maltese government for its cooperation in the evacuation of Chinese nationals.

A 19-day-old baby was among the evacuated Chinese, said a source with the Chinese embassy.

China Eastern Airlines will fly four planes every day to the Mediterranean island nation from Feb. 28 to March 10, as part of all-round airborne evacuation missions aimed at taking stranded Chinese citizens back home as soon as possible, according to information from an emergency meeting of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in Beijing on Saturday.