New Delhi: Wuhan which is the epicenter of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the world, on Wednesday lifted a 76-day lockdown, that was imposed to contain the further spread of the virus by the Chinse administration.

As China started lifting outbound travel restrictions from Wednesday after almost 11 weeks of lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19, cars queued up at expressway toll gates and passengers prepared to board trains to leave Wuhan.

Mostly everyone in the city including delivery men, office employees, doctors, and nurses were trapped ever since the lockdown came into effect. The provincial authorities have also lifted the temporary hold it had imposed on the local transport and inter-province transport, bringing back the crowds on the streets of Wuhan, as per Global Times.

Big data from Wuhan traffic police forecasted the expressways would see the peak of outbound vehicles on Wednesday.

As more enterprises resume their operations, Wuhan has seen an increase of nearly 400,000 vehicles in transit in the past half month, and the number is expected to reach 1.8 million after Wednesday, according to the city's traffic police.

The end of the lockdown signals the normal resumption of life for the city of 11 million people ,while the world still tackles the pandemic.

Wuhan entered a lockdown in late January, which was then seen by many as a draconian move but since then lockdowns have proved as a measure to curb the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Provincial authorities in Hubei had lifted lockdown for the province except for Wuhan on March 25 in an attempt to bring normalcy to the worst-affected province in mainland China.

People in Hubei were given colour-coded QR codes, which indicates their health status. People with green QR codes indicating good health were let out of their homes

The easing of restrictions will be extended to Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged in December, and residents with a green QR code will be able to leave the city and the province.

About 55,000 people are estimated to leave Wuhan by train on Wednesday, most of whom are heading to the Pearl River Delta, home to many of China's warehouses. The first train will go to Nanning, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region at 7:06 am, according to the local railway authority.

(inputs from ANI)