A chartered train carried 547 migrant workers from Hubei province to Zhejiang province on Wednesday, marking the first time citizens have left the province that was hit hardest by the novel coronavirus pandemic on the Chinese mainland since the lockdown in late January.

The workers, from Hubei's Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, arrived in Zhejiang's Shaoxing city on Wednesday evening and were welcomed by the city's mayor and executive vice-mayor, the Shaoxing bureau of human resources and social security said on Wednesday.

All workers had to have their personal identities and health conditions verified before boarding the train, and after they arrived in Shaoxing they were taken to isolation centers to undergo 14 days of quarantine, the bureau said.

Shaoxing has arranged eight chartered buses to bring 159 migrant workers from Hubei's Qianjiang and Jingmen cities to the city since mid-March, it said.