MONTERREY, Mexico -- A brawl between rival drug gangs at an overcrowded penitentiary in northern Mexico turned into a riot Thursday, leaving 49 inmates dead and 12 injured in the country's deadliest prison melee in years.
No escapes were reported in the clash at the Topo Chico prison in Monterrey, said Nuevo Leon state Gov. Jaime Rodriguez.
The fighting began about midnight Wednesday with prisoners setting fire to a storage area, sending flames and smoke billowing into the sky. Rescue workers were seen carrying injured inmates -- some with burns -- from the facility.
Rodriguez said in the morning that 52 people had died, but he lowered that in the afternoon. The reason for the change in death toll was not clear.
At a news conference the governor read a list of 40 names of confirmed victims, saying five of the remaining bodies had been charred by fire and four were yet to be positively identified. One of the injured was listed in serious condition.
Rodriguez said the clash was between two factions led by a member of the infamous Zetas drug cartel, Juan Pedro Zaldivar Farias, also known as "Z-27," and Jorge Ivan Hernandez Cantu, who has been identified by Mexican media as a Gulf cartel figure.
A turf war between the gangs bloodied Nuevo Leon state and neighboring Tamaulipas between 2010 and 2012. The Zetas once nearly controlled the area around Monterrey.
Zaldivar Farias was a suspect in the 2010 killing of American David Hartley on Falcon Lake, which makes up part of the border between Mexico and Texas. Hartley was reportedly gunned down while touring the reservoir on jet skis with his wife.
A crowd of people bundled against the cold gathered at the prison gates, demanding to be let in to learn the fate of their relatives. Some kicked and shook the gates as riot police with plastic shields kept the crowd out. Prison officials later began letting people enter in small numbers.
Mario Martinez was still awaiting word on his father-in-law, who was being held at the prison pending trial. He said the danger of violence inside was well-known long before the riot.
"This [place] was a time bomb," Martinez said. "The authorities should not ignore what the people inside are saying."
Authorities were reinforcing security at other prisons and had transferred some inmates out of Topo Chico, Rodriguez said in an interview with Milenio Television. After initially saying the fighting didn't involve gunfire, he later reported that at least one of the victims was shot to death.
The deadliest prison riot in recent memory also occurred in Nuevo Leon, in February 2012, when Zetas gangsters killed 44 Gulf cartel members at the overcrowded Apodaca federal lockup.
According to a 2014 report by the National Human Rights Commission, Topo Chico was designed to house 3,635 prisoners but actually held about 4,585 that year. Inmates there used violence as a way of exerting control in the prison, it added.
A Section on 02/12/2016