Some 12,000 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from Libya, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
In one of the country's largest evacuation efforts, Chinese workers are being ferried out by air, land and sea - but 18,000 remain in the danger zone.
'There are still a great many Chinese citizens in Libya and the situation there is still complicated so the evacuation work is facing many challenges,' Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao told Xinhua.
The vast majority had been taken to safety in neighbouring countries, either by ship or overland in bus convoys, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website yesterday morning.
A further 451 evacuees returned to Beijing yesterday on the first two government-chartered flights.
'We haven't been able to close our eyes, so now we are finally back in the homeland we will finally be able to get a really good sleep,' one passenger told China News after disembarking from the first plane, which landed in Beijing just before 2.30am.
