India / Restrictions on flights from 6 cities extended till July 31: Kolkata airport

Kolkata: The ban on flight arrivals from six cities at Kolkata airport has been extended till July 31. The airport tweeted the ban has been extended on the request of the state government to restrict movement from cities where coronavirus cases are high.

"The restriction on arriving flights to #KolkataAirport from 6 cities viz Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad has been extended up to 31st July," Kolkata airport tweeted.

"The temporary restriction on arriving flights to #KolkataAirport from 6 cities viz Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad is on the request of State Govt. to restrict movement from high prevalence cities of #coronavirus cases in order to contain the spread of #COVID19," the airport tweeted.

The West Bengal government on Tuesday extended the total lockdown in containment zones till July 19. These zones are located in and around Kolkata, besides Jalpaiguri, Malda, Cooch Behar, Raiganj and Siliguri.

West Bengal's COVID-19 tally reached 38,011 on Friday after it reported a record single-day spike of 1,894 cases, while the number of deaths climbed to 1,049 with 26 more deaths, a health department bulletin said, according to news agency PTI.

Since Thursday evening, 838 people have recovered, the bulletin said, adding that 13,240 samples have been tested during this period.

The number of coronavirus cases in India crossed the 10 lakh-mark, recording 34,956 fresh infections and 687 deaths in the biggest one-day jump, government data shows. The government data put total cases recorded since the outbreak began in the country at 1,003,832 with 25,602 deaths. Over 6.35 lakh people or 63.34 per cent of the patients have recovered.

With the cases surging, lockdowns are being re-imposed in several parts of the country after the easing of restrictions easing in recent weeks as officials hoped the outbreak was under control.

Maharashtra continues to report the highest number of cases, followed by Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana. India is the third country to record more than one million coronavirus cases, behind only the United States and Brazil.