Beijing: Indian and Pakistani students in Chinau2019s Hubei province, the epicentre of the Coronavirus [ COVID- 19] outbreak, have made desperate pleas to their governments to evacuate them after Chinese officials decided to convert their university gymnasiums and dormitories into makeshift hospitals amid a big surge in infection cases.

The death toll from the epidemic surged to 1,367 with 254 deaths on Wednesday, highest in a day, raising concerns that the virus is nowhere near slowing down. There were 52,526 confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland at the end of Wednesday. On Wednesday, Wuhan and Hubei province itself reported 14,840 new confirmed cases to local health officials said.