Indians race for supplies as coronavirus lockdown bites

NEW DELHI: Anxious Indians raced for essentials on Wednesday as an unprecedented 21-day lockdown across the nation of 1.3 billion people all but emptied normally traffic-choked roads.

Many shelves in the megacities of New Delhi and Mumbai were stripped bare of staples like lentils and rice as the world's second most populous country lurched into a shutdown aimed at slowing the spread of the new coronavirus.

"It's getting increasingly difficult to source produce," Mumbai vegetable seller Rafiq Ansari, 35, told AFP. "We are going to face major shortages in the days ahead. And at the same time prices are also going up -- tomatoes have more than doubled in price," he said.

In the polluted capital New Delhi, some buses still operated -- with drivers only allowing the holders of government passes to board -- but police and paramilitaries were stopping private vehicles.

At one checkpoint near the India Gate monument, masked officers turned away some government officials in chauffeur-driven cars. "Outrageous," one official was heard to shout through his car window.