Trapped inmates screamed from their cells as a fire swept through a Honduran prison, killing at least 300 inmates in the world's deadliest prison fire in at least a century, authorities said Wednesday. 
 
 An injured inmate is carried as he arrives at the hospital after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Inmates' relatives stand at the gates of the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, after a fire broke out inside the prison... (Associated Press) 
 
 An injured inmate is carried after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 An injured inmate is carried away after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters stand outside the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012. The fire claimed the... (Associated Press) 
 
 Inmates stand in the courtyard of the prison after a fire broke out in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Inmates' relatives stand outside a prison after a fire broke out inside in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, early Wednesday Feb. 15, 2012. At... (Associated Press) 
 
 A woman grieves outside a prison where a fire broke out inside in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, early Wednesday Feb. 15, 2012. At least 300... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters stand outside of the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012. Radio reports... (Associated Press) 
 
 An injured inmate is carried as he arrives at the hospital after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital,... (Associated Press) 
 
 An injured inmate is carried away after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa, early Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Inmates' relatives stand outside a prison after a fire broke out inside in Comayagua, Honduras, 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, early Wednesday Feb. 15, 2012. At... (Associated Press) 
 
 An injured inmate is carried as he arrives at the hospital after a fire broke out at the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the Central American country's capital,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Some 475 people escaped from the prison in the town of Comayagua and 356 are missing and presumed dead, said Hector Ivan Mejia, a spokesman for the Honduras Security Ministry. He said 21 people had been injured. 
 
 Dozens were trapped behind bars as prison authorities tried to find the keys, officials said. Honduran authorities said the fire had been started by a prisoner who set his mattress ablaze in his cell. 
 
 Outraged relatives of dead inmates tried to storm the gates of the prison Wednesday morning to recover the remains of their loves ones, witnesses told The Associated Press. The crowds were driven back by police officers firing tear gas. 
 
 Channel 5 television showed dozens of inmates' relatives hurling rocks at officers. 
 
 The prison housed people convicted of serious crimes such as homicide and armed robbery, Danilo Orellana, director of the national prison system, told The Associated Press. 
 
 "We want to see the body," said Juan Martinez, whose son was reported dead. "We'll be here until we get to do that." 
 
 Survivors told investigators that an inmate had lit fire to his bedding, Orellana said. 
 
 "Some of his cellmates said that he screamed: 'We will all die here!' And in five minutes everything burned," Orellana said. He did not identify the man or speculate about his motivation. Leonel Silva, fire chief in Comayagua, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) north of the capital, confirmed Orellana's account to reporters on the scene. 
 
 Honduras' overcrowded and dilapidated prisons have been hit by a string of deadly riots and fires in recent years. A 2004 prison fire killed more than 100 incarcerated gang members in a state prison north of the capital. A fire a year earlier at a nearby facility killed 70 gang members. In 1994, a fire sparked by an overheated refrigerator motor in an overcrowded Honduras prison killed 103 people. 
 
 Honduran authorities have repeatedly pledged to improve conditions but human rights groups say little has been done. 
 
 The country of 7.6 million people is a major transit route for drugs headed from South America to the United States and has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime. 
 
 The U.S. State Department has criticized Honduras for "harsh prison conditions" and violence against detainees. 
 
 "This is a problem that's existed for a long time and the solutions haven't been applied, but now we have to do something even though we don't have the money," Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla told reporters. 
 
 Comayagua fire department spokesman Josue Garcia said he saw "horrific" scenes while trying to put out the fire, saying inmates rioted in attempts to escape. He said "some 100 prisoners were burned to death or suffocated in their cells." 
 
 "We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them," Garcia said. 
 
 Rescuers carried shirtless, semi-conscious prisoners from the facility by their arms and legs. One hauled a victim away from the fire by piggyback. 
 
 A prisoner identified as Silverio Aguilar told HRN Radio that someone started screaming, "Fire! fire!" and the prisoners called for help. 
 
 "For a while, nobody listened. But after a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, a guard appeared with keys and let us out," he said. 
 
 He said there had been 60 prisoners packed into his cell. 
 
 At 10:20 a.m., the first U.S. support was on its way to the prison from their base at Soto Cano Air Base, about 15 minutes away. 
 
 "We're driving there right now to provide assistance to emergency responders on the ground," said U.S. Military Staff Sgt. Bryan Franks. Franks said smoke was no longer visible above the city, and that his team included four vehicles made up of a 10-man medical team, a security forces element and firefighters. 
 
 Hundreds of relatives rushed to Santa Teresa Hospital in Comayagua state to learn the fate of their loved ones, Silva said. 
 
 Lucy Marder, chief of forensic medicine for the prosecutor's office, said she believed the death toll would rise and it would take at least three months to identify victims, some burned beyond recognition, because DNA tests will be required. 
 
 Honduras has 24 prisons, 23 for men or mixed populations, and one exclusively for women. In December the total prison population was 11,846 of which 411 were women. 
 
 In 2010, a fire in an El Salvador prison killed 16 inmates and injured another 22, while a Chile prison fire left 81 people dead. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Martha Mendoza and Michael Weissenstein in Mexico City contributed. 

 COMAYAGUA, Honduras A massive fire raged through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing more than 350 inmates, many of them trapped and screaming inside their cells. 
 
 It was one of the world's worst prison fires and was apparently started by one of the inmates late on Tuesday night at the jail in Comayagua, about 75 km (45 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa. 
 
 By the end of it, 359 people were dead, said Danelia Ferrera, a senior official at the attorney general's office. 
 
 "It's a terrible scene ... Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognizable," Ferrera told Reuters, adding officials would have to use dental records and DNA in many cases to identify those killed. 
 
 A convict was suspected of starting the blaze, said the governor of Comayagua province, Paola Castro. 
 
 "One inmate got in touch with me just after 11 p.m. to say another inmate had set fire to the prison in block number 6, presumably by setting fire to a mattress," she said, noting she had met the prisoner during her social work at the prison. 
 
 Jails are stuffed full of convicts in Honduras, which is ravaged by violent street gangs, brutal drug traffickers and rampant poverty. According to the United Nations, the country has the highest murder rate in the world. 
 
 Violence on the streets is mirrored by frequent riots and deadly clashes between rival gangs behind bars. 
 
 But the carnage in the Comayagua prison was shocking even by Honduran standards. Chaos erupted after the blaze took hold. 
 
 "We heard screaming from the people who caught on fire," one prisoner told reporters, showing fingers he fractured escaping the blaze. "We had to push up the roof panels to get out." 
 
 Injured inmates were filmed being carried out of the jail, some crawling with visible burns. 
 
 By the time Red Cross volunteer Jose Manuel Gomez arrived, all he could do for many was gather up their remains. 
 
 "We're placing them into bags in parts because when we grab them, they disintegrate," he said. 
 
 The inferno was the third major prison fire in Honduras since 2003 with dilapidated jails packed at more than double their capacity across the Central American nation. 
 
 Worried and angry relatives surrounded the prison on Wednesday morning, at one point throwing rocks at police and trying to force their way inside the prison. 
 
 Police responded by firing shots into the air and shooting tear gas at protesters, most of whom were women. 
 
 President Porfirio Lobo said he had suspended the director of the Comayagua prison and the head of the national prison system to ensure a thorough investigation. 
 
 He promised to "take urgent measures to deal with this tragedy, which has plunged all Hondurans into mourning." 
 
 Police reported that one of the dead was a woman who had stayed overnight at the prison and the rest were inmates, but noted some of those presumed dead could have escaped. 
 
 VIOLENT GANGS, DRUGS 
 
 Honduras' violent street gangs, known as 'maras', gained power inside Hispanic neighborhoods in the United States in the 1980s and then spread down into Central America. Their members wear distinctive tattoos and are involved in drugs and weapons trafficking, armed robbery and protection rackets. 
 
 A local police chief read out the names of 457 survivors outside the prison on Wednesday, but relatives still clamored for more information. 
 
 "This is desperate, they won't tell us anything and I think my husband is dead," a crying Gregoria Zelaya told Canal 5 TV as she stood by a chain link fence. 
 
 Officials are still investigating the cause. They said earlier on Wednesday that a short circuit might have been behind the blaze at the Comayagua prison, which housed more than 850 inmates, well above its limit of around 500. 
 
 The country's penitentiaries are meant to hold 6,000 but the prison population is more than 12,500. 
 
 In 2003, a fire broke out after a riot in another prison in northern Honduras, killing 68 people. A scandal ensued when an investigation found that police and prison staff had shot and stabbed inmates in the melee. 
 
 The government pledged to improve the crumbling prison system but just a year later more than 100 prisoners were killed in a fire in San Pedro Sula. Survivors of that blaze said guards fired on inmates trying to escape or left them locked up to die. 
 
 Honduras had more than 80 homicides per 100,000 people in 2009, a rate 16 times that of the United States, according to a United Nations report last year. A slow and inefficient justice system has stretched jails to bursting point. 
 
 The country is a major narcotics trafficking transit point for South American cocaine moving north to consumers in the United States, and authorities say they are grappling with a growing presence of violent Mexican drug cartels. 
 
 A political crisis ripped through Honduras in mid-2009 when a widely-condemned coup toppled the democratically elected president but the country has been trying to heal divisions since Lobo was elected later that year. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Cyntia Barrera and Mica Rosenberg in Mexico; Editing by Kieran Murray)
– The numbers are settling in the horrific fire inside a packed Honduras prison: Authorities say 356 inmates are missing and presumed dead, many of whom were trapped inside their cells, reports the AP. About 475 escaped, with 21 reported injuries. According to some survivors, the blaze began when an inmate set fire to his mattress and screamed, "We will all die in here." Many complained of slow response from guards once the fire started. "It's a terrible scene," an official with the attorney general's office tells Reuters. "Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognizable." Angry relatives began throwing rocks at guards today and tried to storm the gates before being driven back with tear gas. Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world and has frequent problems in its overcrowded prisons, notes Reuters.