Amid India's Covid-19 crisis, migrant workers are abandoning cities and heading for their villages in droves in a repeat of last year's exodus when the lockdown shut industries and left them jobless — but this time they are worried about safety.

“I was reading about all the cases and the deaths and getting worried. I still had work but I didn't want to stay in the city,” said Sanjit Kumar, 30, who left Surat in western India last week on a train for his village in eastern Bihar.

“Last year I had gone back on a truck. But this time, I didn't want to wait for a complete lockdown. I was getting scared looking at messages of deaths on WhatsApp,” he told Reuters by phone from his village. “Life is precious for everyone.”

Officials and campaigners said the impact of the lockdown this year was not as severe as in 2020 because industries had not been shut entirely and trains remained operational.