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India has launched a large-scale air and naval evacuation operation pulling out over 700 Indians and nationals of some other countries from trouble-torn Lebanon. The evacuees were ferried to Larnaca in Cyprus by Indian Navy’s INS Mumbai, as part of the mission — ‘Operation Sukoon’. Air India then mounted two special flights of Boeing 747-400s, with a total capacity of about 850, to bring home the stranded.

This is part of one of the largest civilian evacuation operations overseas.

The two special flights would be operated on every alternate day depending on the requirements at Larnaca, AI sources said.

The 608 people, including 23 women and four children, were evacuated by the Indian warship which also ferried 13 people from other countries including Nepal and Sri Lanka. Among those rescued were Lebanese Indians and Indian Americans.

With requests for evacuation being received from hundreds of other Indians amid escalation of fighting, another warship INS Brahmaputra reached Beirut port to rescue more people.

Two more warships — INS Shakti and INS Betwa - are near the Beirut port and will enter the harbor one by one to rescue about 12,000 Indians living in Lebanon.

The second batch of 423 Indians, who were evacuated from Lebanon, arrived in Chennai by a special Air India flight.

The evacuees, mostly from Tamil Nadu and Punjab, were received at the airport by Tamil Nadu Forest Minister N Selvaraj, Dairy Development Minister U Mathivannan and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Malay Mishra.

Out of those who arrived, 269 were from Tamil Nadu, 139 from Punjab, nine from Kerala, three from Goa and one each from Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Indian Embassy in Beirut continues to receive requests for evacuation from Indian nationals and is processing these in consultation with the local authorities, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said at a joint briefing with Assistant Chief of Naval Staff Rear Admiral Pradeep Chauhan here.

“The evacuation operation will continue in the coming days as required,” Sarna said.

The four warships can take 1,000-1,200 people altogether, Admiral Chauhan said. If the number of requests exceeds 1,000, the four ships will undertake a “shuttle” service to Larnaca.