Nine inmates have been killed, 14 were injured, and dozens escaped in a prison riot, in the latest example of Brazil's continuing difficulties maintaining control over its notoriously violent penal system.
According to newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, 106 prisoners escaped the prison in the city of Goiania, near the capital of Brasilia.
Authorities recaptured 27 of the escapees, but the rest remain at large.
One of the nine killed in the mayhem was decapitated, news media reported, sparking memories of a prison riot that occurred one year ago in the Amazon, in which 56 people died, several of whom were decapitated and thrown over prison walls.
That riot, which was rooted in a long-standing gang rivalry, came at the beginning of a January marred by widespread prison violence, with 130 prisoners dying in the first 20 days of 2017.
Brazil's prisons, which suffer endemic violence, are often severely overcrowded.
In comments on Monday to newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, the head of Brazil's prison guard union, Jorimar Bastos, criticised the amount of resources allocated for oversight at the Goiania prison, saying only five guards were assigned to watch over 900 prisoners.
