The boarding school in the village of Celtiksuyu on the outskirts of the city of Bingol was flattened by the tremor which hit in the dead of the night, but bunk beds worked miracles for many of the 200 trapped pupils.

"I fell into a gap between the bunk bed and the wall. This is how I survived," 14-year-old Ersin Besbelli told AFP, lying on a makeshift sickbed moments after being rescued unscathed some 10 hours after the quake struck with a magnitute of 6.4 on the Richter scale.

"I wish nothing but that my friends also survive," he said of his seven roommates, still unaware that all of them remained under the flattened building.

Several other children who survived the disaster owed their lives to the bunk beds, which a government minister overseeing the relief efforts described as "our only hope" to keep the children alive.

Dozens of rescuers and army troops dug through the wreckage of the bulding in the hope of finding survivors, with the help of specially trained dogs.

"We can still hear some of them screaming 'Help us. Give us water' from underneath. It is heart-breaking," one rescuer told AFP.

Dramatic moments of silence weighed over the site when earth-moving machines and rescue workers were ordered to stop so as not to miss even the feeblest of voices coming from the ruined school.

In sharp contrast, there were cries and scenes of chaos each time rescuers emerged with a child on a stretcher.

Their patience and strength running out, emotionally overwhelmed mothers and fathers rushed towards stretchers in the hope that this time it would be their child who had been freed.

Security forces had difficulty in controlling the crowd and had to set up a security cordon to allow doctors to give the survivors first aid.

With no news to cheer her up, Ayse Katkay prayed for the survival of her 14-year-old son Yusuf.

"We are so helpless. May Allah save them," she said, bursting into tears.

By Thursday afternoon, some 76 children had been pulled out alive from the dormitory, along with 26 bodies.

SPACE.WIRE