MALAYSIA stands ready to provide assistance and support to areas affected by Tropical Storm Tembin in southern Philippines.

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the ministry, through the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF), was on standby to provide humanitarian assistance to areas affected by the tropical storm that had unleashed floods and set off landslides over the past few days, specifically in the towns of Tubod and Piagapo.

“I have instructed MAF’s chief of defence force to coordinate the delivery of assistance in the form of foodstuff with his counterpart in the Philippines,” he said in a statement today.

Hishammuddin said he had contacted Philippine National Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to convey the sympathies and concerns of the ministry, MAF and the Malaysian people for the victims of the disaster in southern Philippines.

More than 200 people have been killed and dozens more missing as the storm swept through southern Philippines. 

The typhoon is expected to slam into Vietnam today, forcing authorities there to move one million people from low-lying areas along the southern coastline. – Bernama, December 25, 2017.