JAKARTA, June 18: Nearly 50 inmates in soccer-mad Indonesia left guards red-faced when they broke out of jail just as their captors settled down to watch the World Cup kick off between Brazil and Belgium on Monday night.

Officials said 48 inmates overpowered some six guards, who were crowded around a television, and then fled via the front door from the prison in Pekanbaru city on Sumatra island.

“(The guards) were just about to watch the kick off,” Marsono, secretary of the directorate general of correctional institutions in Jakarta, said on Tuesday.

Brazil beat Belgium 2-0 to move into the World Cup quarter finals.

Police in Pekanbaru, some 950 km (540 miles) northwest of Jakarta, said said 32 jailbreakers were still at large after they had rounded up 16 of the escapees.

Marsono said the prison was overcrowded but insisted guards should not watch World Cup matches while on duty.

“They should not watch the games in the first place, even though it’s rather understandable,” said Marsono.—Reuters