Three-hundred Filipinos in Australia have evacuated due to the deadly bush fires there, according to the Philippine Embassy in Canberra.
“Three hundred Filipinos are already being attended to by the local government and have been given temporary housing and emergency relief,” First Secretary and Consul General Aian Caringal said in an interview with ABS-CBN Sunday night.
Caringal said the evacuations were carried out as a precautionary measure, and after two houses belonging to Filipino residents were among the 1,500 damaged by the bush fires in the area.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was ready to repatriate some 300,000 Filipinos living and working in Australia if conditions worsened, he said.
Caringal advised Filipinos in Australia to continue monitoring the situation in their respective localities and to stay in close coordination with the embassy and local authorities.
Meanwhile, the Palace assured the public that the Philippine government was not sitting idly.
“We understand that 300 Filipinos have been evacuated in the area. So the government is doing measures to ensure the safety of the Filipinos there amid the conflagrations in Australia,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters.
The bush fires began much earlier this season following a three-year drought that has left much of Australia’s bushland tinder-dry and vulnerable to fires.
More than five million hectares of land have reportedly been destroyed.