China assessing US messages on tariff talks: Commerce Ministry

China is assessing messages conveyed by the United States that express its hope to engage in talks with China over tariff issues, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

Senior U.S. officials have repeated their willingness to hold tariff talks with China, the ministry said in a statement. And the U.S. side has recently reached out to convey messages to China through relevant parties many times, expressing its hope to hold talks with China, the ministry said.

China's position has always been consistent, the ministry said, stressing that if the U.S. wants to fight, we will fight to the end; if the U.S. wants to talk, our door is wide open.

Noting that the tariff and trade wars were unilaterally initiated by the United States, the ministry said that if the U.S. wants to negotiate, it must demonstrate sincerity, and make preparations and take concrete actions on issues such as correcting its erroneous practices and lifting the unilateral tariffs.

"We have noticed that the U.S. side has constantly released signals on adjusting tariff measures recently. What we'd stress is that in any possible dialogs and talks, should the U.S. side fail to correct its erroneous unilateral tariff measures, it would indicate it has no sincerity at all, which will further damage the mutual trust. Talking the talk but not walking the walk, or attempting to coerce and blackmail under the pretext of talks will not work with China," the ministry said.

China assessing US messages on tariff talks: Commerce Ministry

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