Passengers from virus-infected cruise ship leave for Australia

More than 100 Australians and New Zealanders left Uruguay on a chartered flight after two weeks stranded aboard a virus-infected cruise ship, Montevideo's Carrasco airport said Saturday.

Of 217 people aboard the Greg Mortimer liner, 128 had tested positive for new coronavirus and had been blocked from docking.

An agreement between the Uruguayan and Australian governments was made to create a "sanitary corridor" to take the mostly elderly tourists from Montevideo's port to its international airport where they boarded a flight for Melbourne, bringing to an end weeks of a virus nightmare.

Television images showed jubilant passengers boarding the medically equipped Airbus A350 plane -- with one kissing the runway tarmac.

"This is (like) winning a World Cup," Uruguay's Foreign Minister Ernesto Talvi tweeted alongside a video of four buses -- flanked by a police escort with blaring sirens -- taking the roughly 110 passengers to the airport.

"Flags waving in the balconies and residents applauding. This is the BEST of Uruguay," he added.

Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne tweeted her thanks to her Uruguayan counterpart Talvi "for your sincere assistance in recent times to ensure the (Australian) passengers have been able to head home."
At the port, some passengers hung a banner from the boat with the words: "Thank you Uruguay." Talvi had described the operation as "a complex but necessary humanitarian mission."