A fire swept through a prison in Honduras, killing at least 300 inmates as they were left trapped in their cells, authorities said Wednesday. Chief of forensic medicine for the prosecutor's office Lucy Marder said that about 356 of the 852 prisoners are unaccounted for. "The majority could be dead, though others could have suffered burns, escaped or survived," she said. The fire began late Tuesday at a prison in Comayagua, north of the Honduras capital city of Tegucigalpa. Comayagua fire department spokesman Josue Garcia described the scene at the prison as "horrific," saying that "some 100 prisoners were burned to death or suffocated in their cells" as they rioted in an attempt to escape. "We could not get them out because we did not have the keys and could not find the guards who had them," he said. Officials said they do not yet know the cause of the fire. They said it could have been started by rioting prisoners or by an electrical short-circuit.
