DFA: PHL authorities checking for Filipinos among Vegas casualties

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday said that Philippine officials in the US are checking to see if any Filipinos are among the casualties in a mass shooting that occurred during a music festival in Las Vegas some hours earlier.

"We are coordinating with Las Vegas police authorities and with leaders of the Filipino community to check on our kababayans there," Consul General Adelio Angelito Cruz of the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles said in a statement issued by the DFA.

"We hope and pray that all of them are safe and accounted for."

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, who is currently in New York, also said in the statement that the Philippines offers its deepest sympathies to the US.

"We mourn with the families of those who perished and hope for the speedy recovery of the more than 400 people who were reported injured," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the American people today."

Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire at concert-goers at a country music festival in Las Vegas Strip, killing at least 50 and injuring more than 400. He later killed himself in a hotel room. — BM, GMA News