Nine killed with machetes in Honduran prison riot

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Nine prisoners were killed with machetes and knives on Saturday during a riot in an overcrowded prison in northern Honduras, the government said.

"Nine prisoners, eight from gangs, died after a fight ... in the San Pedro Sula penitentiary," said Security Ministry spokesman Hector Mejia.

TV images showed blood-stained corridors in the jail in Honduras' second city following the riot, which was believed to have been provoked by a prisoner who shot a fellow inmate.

Police later took control of the jail in San Pedro Sula, Honduras' manufacturing center and its most violent city. The jail holds some 3,000 inmates but was built to hold far fewer.

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are overrun with violent youth street gangs, known as "maras" that trace their origins back to Salvadoran immigrants on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s.

(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Editing by Eric Walsh)