NEW DELHI: While the Indian government has begun taking necessary measures to repatriate Indians who are stranded in different countries, the website of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) crashed on Wednesday after panicked expats rushed to register for the evacuation process.

According to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, more than 200,000 Indians abroad had registered for repatriation and the final number could be twice that.

"The MOCA website is down due to unprecedented traffic. Team NIC (National Informatics Centre) is working on it. Details regarding evacuation flights will be put up on the Air India website soon. Kindly check there directly. Our apologies for the inconvenience caused," the ministry said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the first flight carrying Indian expats from Abu Dhabi has taken off and is expected to touch the Kochi International Airport tonight. Another flight carrying expats from Dubai has also taken off to Kozhikode.