Probe into Honduras jail fire

An inquiry is underway in Honduras into a fire at a prison which killed more than 350 people, local authorities said Thursday. Many victims were burned or suffocated to death in their cells at the prison in Comayagua, north of the capital Tegucigalpa, late on Tuesday in the world's deadliest prison blaze in a century.

Speaking on national television on Wednesday Honduran President Porfirio Lobo pledged to "take urgent measures to deal with this tragedy, which has plunged all Hondurans into mourning."

He added that he had suspended the country's top penal officials as well as those at the Comayagua penitentiary to ensure a thorough and transparent investigation.

Distraught relatives of dead inmates, meanwhile, tried to storm the gates of the prison to recover the remains of their loves ones. Some threw stones as crowds were driven back by police officers firing tear gas.

Inmates trapped in cells

Officials believe the fire was started by a prison inmate at around 10:50 pm Tuesday (0450 GMT Wednesday). According to Supreme Court Justice Richard Ordonez, who is leading the investigation, the jail was at double capacity at the time of the blaze with 856 prisoners packed into barracks.

Many have also blamed prison authorities for reacting too slowly after the fire broke out.

"My son died of asphyxiation there," said Leonidas Medina, 69. "The guards wouldn't open the door and they (the inmates) burned to death."

"They wouldn't have died if they had just opened the doors."

Comayagua governor Paola Castro said she called the Red Cross and fire brigade immediately after an inmate got in touch with her to say another inmate had set fire to block number six. But firefighters said they were kept outside for half an hour by guards who fired their guns in the air, under the impression that there had been a breakout.    

Once inside firefighters struggled to reach inmates who were trapped inside their cells, Comayagua fire department spokesman Josue Garcia said. "We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them."

The inferno was the third major prison fire in Honduras since 2003, when a fire broke out after a riot in northern Honduras, killing 68 people. A year later more than 100 prisoners were killed in a fire in San Pedro Sula. Survivors of that blaze said guards shot at inmates trying to escape or left them locked up to die.

ccp/ai (Reuters, AP, AFP)