Indonesian prison fire kills at least 41

(CNN) – At least 41 prisoners were killed and eight others injured after a fire tore through a crowded prison block on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, police said.

The fire started in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time in Block C of Tangerang prison in Banten province, according to Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus.

Yusri said firefighters prevented the fire from spreading to other blocks in the prison and battled the flames for two hours before it was extinguished.

An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing, but Yusri said they initially suspected an electrical short circuit was to blame.

Rika Aprianti, a spokeswoman for the prison department of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, said authorities were still evacuating the facility and that “the case is under investigation.”

The block housed inmates detained for drug offenses and had a capacity for 122 people, he said. He did not detail how many people were present when the fire broke out, but confirmed that the jail was packed.

Tangerang Prison, an industrial and manufacturing hub near Jakarta, housed more than 2,000 inmates, far more than its 600-person capacity, according to government data as of September.

Kompas TV showed images of firefighters trying to put out huge flames from the top of a building. The broadcaster reported that 41 people had died and eight had been seriously injured.

Indonesia’s Metro TV cited a police report that 73 people also had minor injuries.