Evacuation of Indians from Sint Maarten a priority: Swaraj

"The evacuation of Indian nationals from Sint Maarten is a priority for us," Swaraj said in a tweet.

She said that the evacuation process was to begin today but the plane chartered for the purpose could not fly.

"We are organising another aircraft to carry out the operation," she said.

Sint Maarten, that is jointly administered by France and the Netherlands, was directly in hurricane Irma's path. The island suffered widespread destruction after the storm made landfall last week and wreaked havoc on the Caribbean islands.