Officials: Honduras prison fire kills 357

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

Anxious relatives of inmates wait outside the National Prison of Comayagua, after a fire killed scores of inmates.

By msnbc.com staff and news services

Updated at 8:25 a.m. ET: TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A massive fire swept through a prison in Honduras and killed close to 360 people, including many inmates trapped inside their cells, officials said on Wednesday.

Reuters reported that the attorney general's office said at least 357 people died in the blaze that began late on Tuesday night at the prison in Comayagua, about 45 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

Soldiers, police and anxious relatives surrounded the Comayagua prison, which housed more than 800 inmates -- well above its capacity.

"I am looking for my brother, we don't know what's happened to him and they won't let us in," Arlen Gomez told local radio, according to Reuters.

It was one of the worst prison fires ever in Latin America, and local radio reports said many of the inmates were burned to death inside their cells.

"In the cells there are more than 100 charred bodies," a fire spokesman told Reuters earlier, adding that there were reports of shooting inside the jail late Tuesday.

While local firemen said they were prevented from entering the prison due to gunshots, Daniel Orellana, head of the prison system, said there was no riot.

"We have two hypotheses, one is that a prisoner set fire to a mattress and the other one is that there was a short circuit in the electrical system," he said.

Orlando Sierra / AFP - Getty Images

Firefighters enter the prison after the fire broke out late Tuesday.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, according to the United Nations, and there are frequent riots and clashes between members of rival street gangs in its overcrowded prisons.?

The country is plagued by violent gangs known as "maras," which started in the United States and then spread down into Central America, with members covered in distinctive tattoos.

The fire broke out at 10:55 p.m. local time (11:55 p.m. ET) in the prison, called Granja Penal, Josue Garcia, a spokesman for the Comayagua fire department said, according to EFE news agency.

A nurse at the Santa Teresa Hospital in Comayagua told journalists that about 30 prisoners, many with third- or fourth-degree burns, had been treated at the hospital, according to EFE. Other wounded people were sent to hospitals in Tegucigalpa, EFE said.

"There are many bodies piled up inside the (prison) units who presumably wanted to but couldn't escape the fire," a spokesman for the local fire department said, according to EFE.

Across the country the jails are filled double to their capacity. More than 100 prisoners were killed in a fire in the textile manufacturing town of San Pedro Sula several years ago.

Some of the Comayagua prisoners managed to get out by breaking through the prison's roof and jumping off the building, EFE said.?

Authorities fear that many inmates ran away during the blaze, The Associated Press quoted Hector Ivan Mejia, spokesman for the government's security secretariat, as saying.

Msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/15/10413015-officials-honduras-prison-fire-kills-357

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