Turkey gives up hope of finding survivors of devastating earhquake

TURKISH rescuers yesterday gave up searching for survivors of a devastating quake, saying only steel bunk beds had saved some boys' lives in a collapsed school dormitory that experts branded a flimsy death-trap.

The earthquake struck the eastern province of Bingol early on Thursday, killing at least 167 across the mountainous region, including 84 boys and one teacher at the state-run school.

Rescuers at the scene said the metal bunk beds in which the dormitory students slept had proved stronger than the walls of the four-storey building, completed in the late 1990s. “Without steel bunk beds and lockers we would not have been able to pull a single living person out of this rubble,” said Ufuk Solmaz, chief of a civil defence rescue team from nearby Diyarbakir.