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A fire swept through a Honduran prison killing at least 272 inmates, officials said Wednesday, warning the toll could rise with many inmates left trapped in their cells by the fierce inferno.

Survivors described wrenching scenes of inmates clutching each other in desperation while being engulfed by choking smoke and flames, in what is the world's deadliest prison blaze in a decade.

"They tried to save themselves by hurling themselves into the shower, sinks" and any other source of water they could find, one survivor said.

"We are pulling out bodies," said prison director Danilo Orellana. "The situation is serious. Most have asphyxiated."

Witnesses said some of the inmates escaped by jumping from the prison rooftop, and there were reports that some had fled the crowded facility and were on the loose.

Officials were unclear about the cause, at first surmising that the blaze was sparked by a short circuit. But later they did not rule that the fire might have been deliberately set by inmates.

The inferno broke out at around 10:50 pm Tuesday (0450 GMT Wednesday), and took about three hours to bring under control.

Hundreds of distraught relatives who gathered outside the jail -- frustrated at being left in the dark about the fate of their loved ones -- clashed with police and then stormed the prison gates early Wednesday.

Some 300 men, women and children rushed through the gates of the prison in the central town of Comayagua when police withdrew in face of the crowd.

President Porfirio Lobo announced he was suspending the officials who ran the prison while an investigation was underway into what caused the blaze, which he called "a lamentable and unacceptable tragedy."

Photos published by local media showed grisly images of charred bodies scattered throughout the corridors of the fire-ravaged facility.

Honduran officials said the number of dead could surpass 300, and that of the more than 850 inmates housed in the prison, 357 were still unaccounted for, although they noted some might have escaped during the fire.

The prison, located some 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the capital city of Tegucigalpa, held almost double its official inmate capacity.

It is also just 500 meters (1,650 feet) from a highway that links San Pedro Sula, the economic center of Honduras, with the capital city Tegucigalpa.

The governor of the region said her office received a phone call from someone claiming to be an inmate, telling her that another prisoner had set the fire in a suicide bid.

"At 11:10 pm (0510 GMT) I got a call from an inmate who said to me that another inmate told him, 'I am going to set myself on fire and we are all going to die together,'" said governor Paola Castro.

The director of the Organization of American States said Wednesday he was sending a delegation to Honduras to investigate the cause.

Jose Miguel Insulza expressed dismay as he launched an OAS probe into the "dramatic events" at the overcrowded prison in central Honduras.

Prisons in Honduras -- as is the case throughout Latin America -- are notoriously overcrowded. The country's 24 overcrowded penal facilities officially have room for 8,000 inmates, but actually house 13,000.

The appalling living conditions are a cause of the frequent riots which break out across the region, and a source of frustration for exasperated relatives.

At the break of dawn Wednesday, hundreds had lined up at the prison gates seeking information about the tragedy before the crowd grew restive and began throwing stones at police.

Security forces fired into the air in a bid to stop the unrest, but the relatives burst through a locked gate and flooded into the facility, where they gathered in a front courtyard.

"My brother Roberto Mejia was in unit six," an emotional Glenda Mejia told AFP. "They've told me that the inmates from that unit are all dead."

Nearby, Carlos Ramirez was waiting for word about his brother Elwin, imprisoned on a murder conviction, who also was housed in unit six.

"I haven't been told anything," Carlos Ramirez said, his voice breaking.

Officials here expressed sympathy with the relatives' frustration, but urged them to be patient.

"We understand the pain of the families, but we have to follow a process under the law," Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla told local media.

"We call for calm. It is a very difficult situation," he said.

AFP