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- WORLD, Page 40World NotesSOVIET UNIONA Little Too True?
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- The sensational account from the usually staid Soviet news
- agency TASS last week read like a Western tabloid: six men had
- miraculously been found alive in Armenia, 35 long days after an
- earthquake hit the Soviet republic and killed at least 25,000
- people.
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- Aikaz Akopyan, 50, said he and five other men had survived
- in a small basement by eating pickles and canned goods.
- Akopyan's tale sparked a full-scale media blitz, and he was
- featured in news reports worldwide. But the daily Izvestia
- sensed a hoax and found holes in Akopyan's account; none of the
- other five "survivors," for example, could be found. At week's
- end TASS confessed it was unable "to confirm with full
- certainty the authenticity of the story."
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