TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- A short-circuit at a jail in northern Honduras caused a fire that killed at least 90 inmates and injured more than a dozen others before dawn Monday, the country's vice minister of security said. It was the second major jail fire in the country in a little over a year.
Armando Calidonio, the security vice minister, said the fire quickly consumed part of the jail that housed gang members, many detained during a recent crackdown. Most of the inmates were asleep at the time of the fire.
The prison, in the city of San Pedro Sula, 110 miles north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, is meant to hold 800 prisoners but had double that, Calidonio said.
``Everything happened fast while we were sleeping,'' prisoner Jose Mauricio Lopez told a radio station from his hospital bed. ``It was a fire, and we woke up when our clothes and our bed were in flames.''
Officials said firefighters were able to bring the fire under control quickly, but that it had already consumed a large part of the jail.
An uprising and fire at El Porvenior prison on April 5, 2003, killed nearly 70 people, including guards and visitors. It began with clashes between prisoners, many of them gang members. The violence quickly escalated, and a government report blamed guards for many of the deaths.
Some prisoners were locked in their cells, doused with gasoline, and set on fire.
