Burmese prisoners executed during cyclone....

Soldiers and riot police opened fire at Insein Prison in Rangoon, the capital of Burma, or Myanmar, after inmates there rioted, according to reports.

The facility, which houses many political prisoners who oppose the country’s military junta, has been described by former inmates as “the darkest hell-hole in Burma”.

The chilling report came after the Burmese authorities raised the estimate of the dead and missing to more than 60,000.

It is feared that the secretive regime’s paranoia has hampered the flow of aid which has now started flowing into the country.

According to state television, 22,464 had been killed and another 41,054 were missing after cyclone Nargis barrelled into the low-lying Irrawaddy delta with 120mph winds, bringing with it an enormous storm surge that inundated towns and villages.

The social welfare minister Maung Maung Swe said that 95 per cent of houses in the delta town of Bogalay had been “destroyed”.

“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” he added. “The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”

The cyclone ripped the roofs of thousands of buildings including Insein Prison. More...

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