Jail inferno kills 350

A massive fire swept through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing more than 350 inmates, including many trapped in their cells, officials said yesterday.

The attorney-general's office said 357 people died in the blaze, which began on Tuesday night at the prison in Comayagua, about 75km north of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

"It's a terrible scene ... Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognisable," Danelia Ferrera, a senior official in the attorney-general's office, said.

Ferrera said officials would in many cases have to use dental records and DNA to identify those killed.

"We heard screaming from the people who caught fire," said one of the survivors, showing the fingers he had fractured in his escape from the fire. "We had to push up the roof panels to get out."

Lucy Marder, head of forensic services in Comayagua, said police reported that one of the dead was a woman who had stayed overnight, whereas the rest were prisoners.

But she said some of the 357 presumed dead could have escaped.

Local media reported that the chief of the Comayagua fire department also died in the blaze.

It was one of the worst prison fires in Latin America.

Local radio stations said many of the inmates had been burned to death inside their cells.

The prison apparently held more than 800 inmates - well above its capacity.

Radio reports said the dead and missing totalled 402 - almost half the prison's inmates.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, according to the UN, and there are frequent riots and clashes among rival street gang members in its overcrowded jails.

The gangs, known as "maras", started in the US and spread down into Central America. Members of the gangs are involved in drug trafficking, armed robbery and protection rackets.

Soldiers, police and anxious relatives surrounded the Comayagua prison yesterday morning as television channels showed weeping relatives pressed against a chain-link fence while they waited for news.

Some relatives began throwing stones at police and tried to force their way into the prison.

Police responded by firing shots into the air and tear gas at the protesters, who were mostly women.

"This is desperate. They won't tell us anything and I think my husband is dead," a crying Gregoria Zelaya told Canal 5 TV outside the prison.

Firemen said they had been prevented from entering the prison due to gunshots. But 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.