At least 270 killed in Honduras prison fire
At least 272 inmates have been killed and dozens injured after a fire tore through a prison in Honduras, officials in the Central American country said on Wednesday.
"We are pulling out bodies. The situation is serious. Most have suffocated," prisons director Danilo Orellana said.
Some media reports put the death toll at more than 350 and the local fire department also reported finding more than 100 charred bodies locked in cells at the facility in Comayagua, some 90 kilometres north of the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
By dawn hundreds of desperate relatives lined the prison gates waiting for news of their loved ones.
"My brother Roberto Mejia was in unit six," said an emotional Glenda Mejia.
"They've told me that the inmates from that unit are all dead," she told AFP.
Next to her, Carlos Ramirez was waiting outside the facility for word about his brother Elwin, imprisoned on a murder conviction, who also was housed in unit six.
"I haven't been told anything," Carlos Ramirez said, his voice breaking.
Witnesses said some of the inmates escaped the blaze by jumping from the prison rooftop and there are reports that some of them fled the facility and are on the loose.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2012/02/1242.jpg
Photo: Relatives of inmates wait for news of their loved ones after a blaze tore through a prison in Honduras,
At least 270 killed in Honduras prison fire - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
