Boys who played truant escape quake tragedy at Turkish boarding school

ANKARA (AFP) May 05, 2003
Two boys who played truant and one who claimed to be sick because he wanted to watch a football match snuck away from a boarding school in eastern Turkey just hours before it was levelled by a powerful quake, the Sabah newspaper reported Monday.

Eleven-year-old Halis Besbelli lied about being sick in order to be sent home because he wanted to watch a game between Turkey and the Czech Republic Wednesday evening.

The quake that hit Turkey in the early morning hours on Thursday and measured 6.4 on the Richter scale killed a teacher and 84 children at the Celtiksuyu boarding school, among them Besbelli's elder brother.

Two other boys, Adem Kayaokay and Veysel Kancura, both aged 14, ran away from the school on Wednesday evening after failing to persuade their teachers they too were "sick."

"That day I begged several other friends to run away with me. I wish they had listened to me," Kayaokay told Sabah.

The quake killed a total of 167 people across the province of Bingol, an impoverished mainly Kurdish region.

SPACE.WIRE