BREAKING: Fire at an overcrowded Indonesia prison block kills 41 inmates, government minister says.
, a government minister said on Wednesday, injuring scores more in a blaze that police said may have been caused by an electrical fault.
Cells were locked at the time, the minister said, but with the fire raging uncontrollably,"some rooms couldn't be opened." Prisons in Indonesia are notoriously overcrowded, with experts saying the phenomenon is partly due to the emphasis on incarceration rather than rehabilitation of those convicted of drug-related offenses under the country's strict narcotics laws.Antara Foto / Reuters
Metro TV cited a police report saying that 73 people also had suffered light injuries."The initial suspicion is this was because of an electrical short circuit," police spokesman Yusri Yunus told the broadcaster. Leopold Sudaryono, a criminologist and Ph.D. candidate at the Australian National University, said that overcrowding also complicated emergency evacuation efforts.
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