The Civil Aviation Ministry’s website crashed on Wednesday as panicked citizens abroad rushed to register for a repatriation of nearly 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries on planes and naval ships.

By the time, the website crashed, media reports quoted Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri as saying that two lakh Indians abroad had registered for repatriation and that the final number could be twice that.

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The ministry also claimed that the crashing of its website was because of “unprecedented traffic” and urged people to check the website of Air India, which is operating the flights, for details.

Kerala is the biggest source of Indians in the Gulf.

In the first five days, 2,250 people are expected to land at the state’s airports in Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. Kochi port was also set to receive all three ships. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that 442,000 people wanted to come back to Kerala, and that the central government had “only” approved the return of 80,000.

Those being flown back have to pay, with prices reportedly ranging from Rs 12,000 for a ticket from Dubai to Rs 1 lakh to fly back from the United States.

Meanwhile, the first flight to repatriate stranded Indian nationals under the massive ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ took off from Kerala’s Kochi airport to Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

The Government has announced 64 repatriation flights between May 7 and May 13 to bring nearly 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries in the biggest evacuation exercise in world history.

These special flights would be operated by Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express to repatriate Indians from 12 countries — the UAE, the UK, the US, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.

The Government is also deploying a raft of Indian naval ships to undertake the massive exercise. A total of 14 warships have been readied for evacuating Indian citizens from Gulf and other countries amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, said Indian Navy officials on Tuesday.

The Government had on Monday said it will facilitate the return of Indian nationals stranded abroad on compelling grounds in a phased manner from May 7.

(With AFP inputs)