LANGKAWI, Jan 26 — ​​​​​​​A travel agency here has denied an allegation that hundreds of Chinese nationals had arrived on the island to escape the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as seen in a picture which has now gone viral on social media.

Fantastic Tour Sdn Bhd marketing manager Mohd Fadhil Kamaruddin explained that it was actually the picture of the arrival of his agency’s passengers from Nanjing, China on January 17.

"Some 180 passengers from Nanjing arrived at the Langkawi International Airport at 6am on January 17 via a special chartered flight using Malindo Air.

"They were here for five days until January 21 and have returned home. That was an old picture of the passengers arriving on January 17,” he told Bernama here today. — Bernama