26 more Filipinos evacuated from tsunami-hit towns—DFA

MANILA, Philippines—A consular team sent by the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo has relocated another 26 Filipinos from Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in northeast Japan that were among the areas devastated by the March 11 killer quake and ensuing tsunami.

This brought to 138 the total number of Philippine nationals evacuated so far by the embassy from the disaster-affected areas.

In a report to the home office, the mission on Monday said a bus carrying the evacuees arrived in the Japanese capital at around 11 p.m. Sunday.

They were brought to the Wesley Center in Minami Aoyama, an evacuation center set up by the embassy.

Meanwhile, 112 Filipinos earlier picked up by consular teams from Sendai and Fukushima are temporarily housed at a Catholic church in Kichijogi, the Lighthouse Ministry in Yokohama City, and the Franciscan church in Roppongi, Tokyo.

Philippine Ambassador to Japan Manuel Lopez said they would “send more buses in the disaster-affected areas if necessary.”

According to the embassy, the latest batch of Filipino evacuees had “expressed their desire to be relocated to Tokyo in the light of the nuclear emergency” in Fukushima.

The consular mission, headed by Vice Consuls Bryan Dexter Lao and Ryan Pondoc and Department of Foreign Affairs special assistants Elmer Cato and Andre Peter Estanislao, arrived at Sendai (in Miyagi prefecture) at 2 p.m. The group left for Tokyo three hours later.

Last weekend, DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario reported that there were still no reported Filipino fatalities in the March 11 natural disaster.

Del Rosario flew to Tokyo on Friday to oversee the embassy’s relocation and evacuation program for Filipinos living in northeast Japan.

He earlier told a DFA press briefing that “many Filipinos in the affected areas have already settled and are reluctant to go to evacuation centers” put up by Japanese authorities.

According to Del Rosario, they were “endeavoring to make a close count (of Filipinos in quake and tsunami-affected areas).”

He stressed the “need to have that inventory.”