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KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey Rescuers pulled more survivors from the rubble a week after an earthquake struck Turkey and Syria leaving more than 35,000 dead, as the United Nations warned the toll was set to rise far higher.

A young boy and a 62-year-old woman were the latest miracle rescues after being trapped for nearly seven days under the wreckage of collapsed buildings since Feb 6s devastating quake.

Seven-year-old Mustafa was rescued in south-east Turkeys Hatay province, while Madam Nafize Yilmaz was pulled free in Nurdagi, also in Hatay, reported the Anadolu state news agency early on Monday. Both had been trapped for 163 hours before their rescue late on Sunday.

CNN Turk, meanwhile, reported that 40-year-old Sibel Kaya was rescued in southern Gaziantep province, some 170 hours after the first of two major quakes struck the region.

Turkeys disaster agency said more than 32,000 people from Turkish organisations were working on search-and-rescue efforts, along with 8,294 international rescuers.

A member of a British search team posted a remarkable video on Twitter on Sunday showing a rescuer crawling down a tunnel created through the rubble to find a Turkish man who had been trapped for five days in Hatay.

Search teams are facing a race against the clock, as experts caution that hopes for finding people alive in the debris dim with each passing day.

In the devastated Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, near the epicentre of the quake, excavators dug through mountains of twisted rubble as a rescue team recovered a body from the wreckage.

But in many areas, rescue teams said they lacked sensors and advanced search equipment, leaving them reduced to carefully digging through the rubble with shovels or only their hands.

If we had this kind of equipment, we would have saved hundreds of lives, if not more, said Mr Alaa Moubarak, head of civil defence in Jableh, north-west Syria. Lack of aid in northern Syria

The UN has decried the failure to ship desperately needed aid to war-torn regions of Syria.

A convoy with supplies for north-west Syria arrived via Turkey, but the UNs relief chief Martin Griffiths said much more was needed for millions whose homes were destroyed.

He said the rescue phase was coming to a close, with urgency now switching to providing shelter, food, schooling and psychosocial care.

We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned, looking for international help that hasnt arrived, Mr Griffiths said on Twitter.

Assessing damage in southern Turkey on Saturday, when the toll stood at 28,000, Mr Griffiths said he expected the figure to double or more, as chances of finding survivors fade with every passing day. More On This Topic Turkey earthquake: Teen pulled out alive over 80 hours later Two-year old rescued from rubble 79 hours after earthquake in Turkey Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system, and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is under Western sanctions.

But a 10-truck UN convoy crossed into north-west Syria via the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, carrying shelter kits, plastic sheeting, rope, blankets, mattresses and carpets.

Bab al-Hawa is the only point for international aid to reach people in rebel-held areas of Syria after nearly 12 years of civil war, after other crossings were closed under pressure from China and Russia.

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) met Mr Assad in Damascus on Sunday and said the Syrian leader had voiced readiness for more border crossings to help bring aid into the rebel-held north-west.

He was open to considering additional cross-border access points for this emergency, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. Conflict, Covid-19, cholera, quake Emergency personnel and local people work at the site of collapsed buildings following a powerful earthquake in Adiyaman, south-eastern Turkey, on Feb 12. PHOTO: EPA-EFE The compounding crises of conflict, Covid-19, cholera, economic decline and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll, Dr Tedros said a day after visiting Aleppo.

While Damascus has given the all-clear for cross-line aid convoys to go ahead from government areas, Dr Tedros said the WHO is still waiting for a green light from rebel-held areas before going in.

Mr Assad looked forward to further efficient cooperation with the UN agency to improve the shortage in supplies, equipment and medicines, his presidency said.

He also thanked the United Arab Emirates for providing huge relief and humanitarian aid, with pledges of tens of millions of dollars.

But in Turkey, security concerns prompted the suspension of some rescue operations, and dozens of people have been arrested for looting or trying to defraud victims in the aftermath of the quake, according to state media.

An Israeli emergency relief organisation said on Sunday that it suspended its earthquake rescue operation in Turkey and returned home because of a significant security threat to its staff. Anger grows

After days of grief and anguish, anger in Turkey has been growing over the poor quality of buildings, as well as the governments response to the countrys worst disaster in nearly a century.

A total of 12,141 buildings were officially either destroyed or seriously damaged in Turkey.

Three people were put behind bars by on Sunday and seven more have been detained, including two developers who were trying to relocate to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Officials and medics said 31,643 people had died in Turkey and 3,581 in Syria from last Mondays 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 35,224. AFP More On This Topic Hope for more survivors fades as Turkey-Syria quake toll passes 20,000 UN admits aid failure for Syria as quake toll tops 33,000

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World

Inside Iran’s notorious Evin Prison – as Tehran says damage shows Israel targeted civilians

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Inside Iran's notorious Evin Prison - as Tehran says damage shows Israel targeted civilians

It is one of the most notorious and secret places in Iran.

Somewhere foreign journalists are never allowed to visit or film. The prison where dissidents and critics of Iran’s government disappear – some never to be seen again.

But we went there today, invited by Iranian authorities eager to show the damage done there by Israel.

Evin Prison was hit by Israeli airstrikes the day before a ceasefire ended a 12-day war with Iran. The damage is much greater than thought at the time.

Evin Prison, Iran

We walked through what’s left of its gates, now a mass of rubble and twisted metal, among just a handful of foreign news media allowed in.

A few hundred yards in, we were shown a building Iranians say was the prison’s hospital.

Behind iron bars, every one of the building’s windows had been blown in. Medical equipment and hospital beds had been ripped apart and shredded.

What Iran says was the hospital at the Evin Prison
Image:
Debris scattered across what Iran says was the prison hospital

It felt eerie being somewhere normally shut off to the outside world.

On the hill above us, untouched by the airstrikes, the buildings where inmates are incarcerated in reportedly horrific conditions, ominous watch towers silhouetted against the sky.

Evin felt rundown and neglected. There was something ineffably sad and oppressive about the atmosphere as we wandered through the compound.

The Iranians had their reasons to bring us here. The authorities say at least 71 people were killed in the air strikes, some of them inmates, but also visiting family members.

The visitor centre at Evin Prison after Israeli attacks
Image:
Authorities say this building was the visitor centre


Iran says this is evidence that Israel was not just targeting military or nuclear sites but civilian locations too.

But the press visit highlighted the prison’s notoriety too.

Iran’s critics and human rights groups say Evin is synonymous with the brutal oppression of political prisoners and opponents, and its practice of hostage diplomacy too.

British dual nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were held here for years before being released in 2022 in exchange for concessions from the UK.

Read more:
Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US
Why Netanyahu wants a 60-day ceasefire – analysis

The main complex holding prisoners sits atop a hill
Image:
Inmates are held in building on a hill above, which has been untouched by airstrikes

Interviewed about the Israeli airstrikes at the time, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe showed only characteristic empathy with her former fellow inmates. Trapped in their cells, she said they must have been terrified.

The Israelis have not fully explained why they put Evin on their target list, but on the same day, the Israeli military said it was “attacking regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran”.

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The locus of their strikes were the prison’s two entrances. If they were trying to enable a jailbreak, they failed. No one is reported to have escaped, several inmates are thought to have died.

The breaches the Israeli missiles made in the jail’s perimeter are being closed again quickly. We filmed as a team of masons worked to shut off the outside world again, brick by brick.

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Environment

Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller

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Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller

A new Tesla prototype was spotted again, reigniting speculation among Tesla shareholders, even though it’s likely just a Model Y, potentially a bit smaller, and the upcoming stripped-down, cheaper version.

Over the last few months, there have been several sightings of what appears to be a Model Y with camouflage around Tesla’s Fremont factory.

It sparked a lot of speculation about it being the new “affordable” compact Tesla vehicle.

There’s confusion in the Tesla community around Tesla’s upcoming “affordable” vehicles because CEO Elon Musk falsely denied a report last year about Tesla’s “$25,000” EV model being canceled.

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The facts are that Musk canceled two cheaper vehicles that Tesla was working on, commonly referred as “the $25,000 Tesla” in early 2024. Those vehicles were codenamed NV91 and NV92, and they were based on the new vehicle platform that Tesla is now reserving for the Cybercab.

Instead, Musk noticed that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y production lines were starting to be underutilized as the Company faced demand issues. Therefore, Tesla canceled the vehicles program based on the new platform and decided to build new vehicles on Model 3/Y platform using the same production lines.

We previously reported that these electric vehicles will likely look very similar to Model 3 and Model Y.

In recent months, several other media reports reinforced this, and Tesla all but confirmed it during its latest earnings call, when it stated that it is “limited in how different vehicles can be when built on the same production lines.”

Now, the same Tesla prototype has been spotted over the last few days, and it sent the Tesla shareholders community into a frenzy of speculations:

Electrek’s Take

As we have repeatedly reported over the last year, the new “affordable” Tesla “models” coming are basically only stripped-down Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

They might end up being a little smaller by a few inches, and Tesla may use different model names, but they will be extremely similar.

If this is it, which is possible, you can see it looks almost exactly like a Model Y.

It’s hard to confirm if it’s indeed smaller because of the angle of the vehicle compared to the other Model Ys, but it’s not impossible that the wheelbase is a bit smaller – although it’s hard to confirm.

Either way, the most significant changes for these stripped-down, more affordable “models” are expected to be cheaper interior materials, like textile seats instead of vegan leather, no heated or ventilated seats standard, no rear screen, maybe even no double-panned acoustic glass and a lesser audio system.

As previously stated, the real goal of these new variants, or models, is to lower the average sale price in order to combat decreasing demand and maintain or increase the utilization rate of Tesla’s current production lines, which have been throttled down in the last few years to now about 60% utilization.

If this trend continues, Tesla would find itself in trouble and may even have to close its factories.

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Politics

US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

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US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

Increasing US regulatory clarity is enabling more traditional finance participants to seek out decentralized financial solutions.

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