China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

China on Wednesday launched the Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship, sending a crew of three astronauts into space.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off at 04:27 Wednesday (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The Shenzhou-19 crew, consisting of mission commander Cai Xuzhe and crew members Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, will stay in orbit for about six months.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-19 spaceship will perform a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the front port of the space station core module Tianhe in about 6.5 hours, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft, said a spokesman with the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Tuesday.

Shenzhou-19 is the 33rd flight mission of China's manned space program, and the fourth manned mission during the application and development stage of China's space station.

China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

China launches Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship

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