Foreign students stuck under lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, are launching social media campaigns, making phone calls and writing letters urging their governments to get them out as soon as possible.

Governments globally are grappling with the challenge of how to get their citizens out of Wuhan, a city of 11 million residents now under lockdown.

Pakistan said that quarantine regulations prevented it from flying out the more than 500 Pakistani students and their families from Wuhan. Bangladesh and India said they were putting aircraft on standby.

Muhammad Rauf, a master's student from Pakistan, told Reuters he and around 40 others were locked in their Wuhan dormitory for all but four hours a day.

“How long will the lockdown be?... What will we do? Just count down our days?” he said, adding they had been calling for an evacuation plan from their government for ten days.

Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Show all 15 1 /15 Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, China on 28 January 2020 after the city is put under lockdown due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Traffic on the Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, China on 12 January, 2020 before the city was put under virtual lockdown due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan, China on 28 January 2020 after the city is put under lockdown due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan, China on 12 January, 2020 before the city was put under virtual lockdown due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Leishenshan Hospital which is under construction in Wuhan, China on 29 January 2020 Maxar Technologies/Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Two residents walk in an empty Jiangtan park in Wuhan, China Getty Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets wuhan-empty-skyscraper A woman walks on an empty road in Wuhan, China on 27 January Getty Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets A large empty shopping area that would usually be busy during the Chinese New Year on 28 January Getty Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Streets are nearly empty in a large shopping area that would usually be busy during the Chinese New Year on 28 January Getty Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets Roads remain empty on 27 January in Wuhan, China Getty Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets An empty street in Wuhan, China on 25 January Emilia/Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets An empty street in Wuhan, China on 25 January Emilia/Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets An empty street in Wuhan, China on 25 January Emilia/Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets An empty road in Wuhan, China on 25 January Emilia/Reuters Satellite images show Wuhan's empty streets An empty road in Wuhan, China on 25 January AFP/Getty

Pakistani health minister Zafar Mirza said he understood students were anxious, there were no current plan to evacuate them - but the embassy was providing support.

“We are following Chinese regulations according to which the whole place is under quarantine. As they open it, we will decide accordingly,” he told Reuters by phone.

Another Pakistani student in Wuhan, who declined to be identified because he feared reprisals from authorities, said the students had been in contact with their embassy but it had not responded in two days.

“They say that we cannot evacuate. Why can't they evacuate us? Other countries have evacuated,” he said. “We are thankful to the Chinese government ... but we are not the responsibility of the Chinese government. We are the responsibility of our government.”

In one video posted on social media, a group of Pakistani students who said they were in Wuhan chanted “please save us” while one man asked the government to “take some measures to get us out of here”.

China has become a major destination for South Asian university students in recent years, fuelled in part by scholarships offered as China expands its influence in the region through president Xi Jinping's flagship Belt and Road infrastructure programme. Pakistan and China are very close allies.

More than 400 Bangladeshis, mostly students, are stranded in Wuhan.

“Wuhan has become a ghost town,” Rakibil Hafiz, a Bangladeshi engineering student from at Hubei University of Technology, told Reuters via WhatsApp.

“There is nothing we can do. We are all stuck in the dormitory. We are very worried. I want to go home.”