Deep in an open coal mine in southern Greece, researchers have discovered the antiquities-rich country’s oldest archaeological site, which dates to 700,000 years ago and is associated with modern humans’ hominin ancestors.

The find would drag the dawn of Greek archaeology back by as much as a quarter of a million years, although older hominin sites have been discovered elsewhere in Europe. The oldest, in Spain, dates to more than a million years ago.

The Greek site was one of five investigated in the Megalopolis area during a five-year project involving an international team of experts, a Culture Ministry statement said.

It was found to contain rough stone tools from the Lower Palaeolithic period — about 3.3 million to 300,000 years ago — and the remains of an extinct species of giant deer, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and a macaque monkey.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio now holds the record for the longest U.S. spaceflight.

Rubio surpassed the U.S. space endurance record of 355 days on Monday at the International Space Station.

He arrived at the outpost last September with two Russians for a routine six months. But their stay was doubled after their Soyuz capsule developed a coolant leak while parked at the space station.

The trio will return to Earth on Sept. 27 in a replacement capsule that was sent up empty for the ride home. By then, Rubio will have spent 371 days in space, more than two weeks longer than Mark Vande Hei, the previous U.S. record holder for a single spaceflight, Russia holds the world record of 437 days, set in the mid-1990s.

“Your dedication is truly out of this world, Frank!” NASA chief Bill Nelson said via X, formerly known as Twitter.

A replacement crew of two Russians and an American is set to launch to the station from Kazakhstan on Friday.

Emergency workers uncovered hundreds of bodies as they dug through the wreckage of Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Tuesday, and 10,000 people were reported still missing after floodwaters broke through dams and smashed through the city, washing away entire neighborhoods.

At least 700 recovered bodies have been buried so far, the health minister for eastern Libya said. Derna’s ambulance authority put the current death toll at 2,300.

But the toll is likely to be far higher, in the thousands, said Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He told a U.N. briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia that at least 10,000 people were still missing.

The situation in Libya was “as devastating as the situation in Morocco,” Ramadan said, referring to the deadly earthquake that hit near the city of Marrakesh on Friday night.

The death toll from floods in Greece has risen to 15 after 4 more bodies found, authorities say

The destruction came to Derna and other parts of eastern Libya on Sunday night, when Mediterranean storm Daniel pounded the coast. Residents said they heard loud explosions and realized that dams outside the city had collapsed, unleashing flash floods down Wadi Derna, a river running from the mountains through the city and into the sea.

The wall of water sweeping through Derna “erased everything in its way,” said one resident, Ahmed Abdalla.

Videos posted online by residents showed large swaths of mud and wreckage where the raging waters had swept away the residential neighborhoods on both banks of the river. Multi-story apartment buildings that once were well back from the river had facades ripped away and concrete floors collapsed. Cars lifted by the water were left dumped on top of each other.

Residents in the city of some 90,000 were on their own in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, with authorities in eastern Libya saying they were unable to reach Derna. On Tuesday, most of the eastern government had arrived in the city.

Local emergency responders, including troops, government workers, volunteers and residents were digging through rubble to recover the dead. They also used inflatable boats to retrieve bodies from the water.

Footage showed dozens of bodies covered by blankets laid out in the yard of a hospital in Derna. Many bodies were believed trapped under rubble or had been washed out into the Mediterranean Sea, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel.

“We were stunned by the amount of destruction … the tragedy is very significant, and beyond the capacity of Derna and the government,” Abduljaleel told The Associated Press on the phone from Derna.

Red Crescent teams from other parts of Libya also arrived in Derna on Tuesday morning but extra excavators and other equipment had yet to get there, hampered in part by cutoff and destroyed roads.