At least 13 people died on Thursday in a Honduras prison fire, officials said, less than two months after a deadly prison blaze killed more than 350.
“There are 13 bodies. We have not yet been able to identify the circumstances of the incident,” Marleny Vanegas, of the city prosecutor’s office, said at the San Pedro Sula prison in the north of the country.
“We will have to await the results of the investigation,” he said.
Photo: EPA
According to initial reports by the authorities, the detainees themselves put out the fire with buckets of water.
Earlier, police spokesman Walter Amaya had put the death toll at one. Officials said the fire was rapidly brought under control.
“We have regained control of the prison,” Amaya said.
Amaya said rival groups of detainees seemed to have cause the fire, but cautioned he was awaiting the results of the investigation for further details.
Local media reports spoke of as many as 20 killed, and said the fire broke out after inmates attacked and beheaded a prisoner who had been appointed by wardens to impose discipline.
Honduran Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said the fire at the facility — which was built for 800 inmates but currently holds 2,250 — had “once again highlighted the critical situation” in the country’s overcrowded prisons.
A horrific fire erupted on Feb. 14 at a prison in Comayagua, about 90km north of the capital Tegucigalpa.
The incident, in which 361 people were killed, was one of the world’s deadliest prison blazes ever, and underscored the problem of overcrowding in Latin American jails.
Agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms concluded that the Comayagua fire was accidental, but US ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske also said official “negligence” and “legal violations” were to blame, due to overcrowding at the facility.
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