The 2025 Paragliding World Cup kicked off in Linzhou City, central China's Henan Province on Saturday, drawing 130 elite athletes from 24 countries and regions for a week of high-altitude competition.
Pilots launched from mountain slopes in the opening round of the global tournament, executing precision maneuvers in the "race-to-goal" discipline.
Dubbed "Formula 1 of the sky", the event combines navigational skills, meteorological analysis and strategic flight planning as competitors navigate electronic waypoints.
The competition runs through June 14, with pilots accumulating points toward the World Cup championship.
Linzhou's unique topography creates consistent thermal updrafts ideal for paragliding. The city has hosted over 40 high-level international paragliding events since 1992, including four World Cup competitions.
2025 Paragliding World Cup opens in China's Henan
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
