US turns to Europe for help amid egg crisis

The United States has turned to several European countries for egg imports amid a severe supply shortage and soaring prices at home, according to media reports.

The head of the Danish Egg Association confirmed that the United States has sent a written request for eggs, and they are currently assessing their export potential for the next six months, according to reports.

In addition to Denmark, the United States has also sent requests to Sweden and Finland.

Sweden's largest egg producer, Kronagg, revealed that Europe is also grappling with an egg shortage and will prioritize supplying the European market, said the reports.

Similarly, the Finnish Poultry Association indicated that the number of eggs Finland can export is insufficient to address the egg shortage in the United States.

The reports also noted that Norway's Ministry of Agriculture and Food confirmed receiving a request from the U.S. government in early March. However, most of the country's egg producers have decided not to export eggs to the United States.

Meanwhile, the French egg industry organization reported that the ongoing avian influenza outbreak in the EU has exacerbated the egg shortage in France.

Elsewhere in the world, Poultry trade associations from smaller egg-exporting countries such as Indonesia have also reported receiving such requests from the United States.

The Egg Producers Central Union in Türkiye said in February that the country would plan to export 420 million eggs to the United States this year.

U.S. egg prices have continued to surge due to a shortage of egg-laying hens amid an outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, adding continued pressure to inflation.

Egg prices have shot up 10.4 percent month over month and 58.8 percent year over year in the country, according to a March 12 report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

US turns to Europe for help amid egg crisis

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight