Fire wrecks Honduras market

ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION

An intense fire tore through a market place in the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Saturday (February 18th).

The blaze erupted during one of the busiest times for trade.

Fire fighters were blocked from getting to the scene by narrow one-way streets packed with shoppers and wall-to-wall market stalls.

The Mayor's office said there had been no reports of deaths.

The cause of the inferno was not immediately clear.

Some witnesses said it had been started by a bomb thrown into the building, others said it was started by an electrical short circuit at one of the vendor stalls.

President Porfirio Lobo called an emergency meeting of cabinet ministers over the incident.

The blaze follows an unrelated incident on Wednesday (February 15) when fire swept through a detention centre just over 70 kilometres from Tegucigalpa.

The attorney general's office says 359 people were killed although police say some of those presumed dead may have escaped.

The blaze is considered one of the worst prison fires ever in Latin America.