China's navy hospital ship arrives in Brazil for friendly visit

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's hospital ship, the Silk Road Ark, arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, beginning a seven-day friendly visit along with medical exchange activities.

This is one of the stops for the hospital ship during its 220-day "Harmony Mission 2025" mission, and also the first visit by a Chinese naval hospital ship to Brazil.

During the visit, the Chinese naval hospital ship Silk Road Ark will be open to the public and will dispatch expert teams to the Marcílio Dias naval hospital and Brazilian Navy Operational Medical Center for medical exchanges. Representatives from the Brazilian Navy's health services department will board the Chinese naval hospital ship for a visit and conduct medical exchanges. Brazilian naval combat officers will take part in the combat rescue demonstration of the Chinese naval hospital ship.

In addition, the Chinese naval hospital ship plans to conduct joint maritime exercises with the Brazilian Navy on topics such as formation navigation and joint search and rescue of individuals that had fallen into the water.

"This mission aims to enhance cooperation between China and its partners through medical services and cultural exchange activities. It is a journey of friendship, peace, and benevolence. We are willing to work with countries in the South Pacific and Latin America to provide more public security products to the international community and jointly practice the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity," said Zhang Peng, a member of Harmony Mission 2025.

China's navy hospital ship arrives in Brazil for friendly visit

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