Sprawling quarantine camps with rows upon rows of cramped metal boxes to house people suspected of having Covid-19 have sprung up in China, social media videos show.
The Communist country is attempt to eradicate the virus despite warnings that the more infectious Omicron variant makes a Zero Covid strategy impossible, even with the draconian measures used by Beijing.
There are now a total of 20million people confined to their homes in China after the cities of Anyang and Yuzhou joined the 13million in Xi'an under quarantine and banned from leaving their home even to buy food.
Anyang, home to 5.5 million people, was locked down late Monday after two cases of the omicron variant were reported - and some residents of locked-down cities have told the BBC that they were part of a 'big transfer' of thousands of people to the camps.
Pregnant women, children and the elderly are believed to be among those sent to the Xi'an camps, with insiders sharing the horrors of their detention in the Zero Covid state.
Footage widely shared online shows people in the tiny boxes furnished with a wooden bed and a toilet, where they are forced to remain for as long as two weeks.
Sprawling quarantine camps with rows upon rows of cramped metal boxes to house people suspected of having Covid-19 have sprung up in China
Detainees showed workers in hazmat suits providing food to those being held in the camps in the epicentre of the latest Chinese outbreak.
Those who have experienced the dystopian facilities say they have been left with little food in the freezing metal boxes.
Residents in the Mingde 8 Yingli housing compound were told just after midnight on January 1 they had to leave their homes and enter the quarantine centre.
Local reports said residents had mixed while queuing for their Covid tests.
A witness claimed 30 buses arrived at the compound, while another said 1,000 people were transferred.
Footage shared online shows people in the tiny boxes furnished with a wooden bed and a toilet
Staff members wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) spray disinfectant outside a shopping mall in Xi'an
The residents were then left on the buses for several hours, with one image of a man standing alone at night while waiting to be moved to the camp went viral on Chinese social media.
One comment online seen by the BBC said: 'There is nothing here, just basic necessities... Nobody has come to check up on us, what kind of quarantine is this?
'They did a big transfer of us, more than a thousand people, in the night and many of us are elderly people and children.
'They didn't make any proper arrangements and so they just carelessly placed us.'
Outside of the camp, a man was beaten by pandemic workers after he
