A fire has broken out in a Honduras jail, killing 350 prisoners, officials have said.
The blaze occurred at the penitentiary in Comayagua, 90 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.
Some prisoners escaped the fire by breaking through the roof and leaping from the building, the BBC reported. Others perished in their cells.
A spokesman for the city fire department told the Los Angeles Times that he saw "hellish" scenes while trying to put out the fire, with many prisoners "burned to death or suffocated in their cells."
Initial reports indicate the fire was caused by an electrical short-circuit, but Honduras media have also reported there was a riot in the prison just before the fire broke out.
A prison spokesman told Reuters: "In the cells there are more than 100 charred bodies.”
The prison, which was destroyed by the fire, was built to hold 800 inmates.
This afternoon the attorney general's office put the number of dead at 357 - up from an earlier estimate of 272 fatalities.