Second tunnel found at Brazil jail

Police preparing to storm Carandiru jail

Two days after a mass jail break at Brazil's largest prison, the Carandiru jail in Sao Paulo, authorities have discovered a second escape route.

On Sunday, 105 prisoners escaped through a tunnel into the city sewers - only 29 have been recaptured.

The new tunnel, leading from the prison hospital towards the city's sewage system, was incomplete, and no prisoners had escaped this time, the prison authorities said.

Carandiru prisoners surrender to police

Many of those who escaped are said to be members of a gang which organised a prison revolt across Sao Paulo state last February, using mobile phones from inside Carandiru to co-ordinate protests.

Carandiru houses more than 9,500 inmates, often in dreadful conditions.

Massacre

In 1992, it was the scene of Brazil's worst prison massacre, when police entered the jail to quell a revolt, and more than a hundred prisoners were killed.

Last month, a former Brazilian police chief was convicted of the murder of 102 inmates.

Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes was sentenced to 632 years, six years each for the victims and 20 years for five attempted murders, although under Brazilian law he will serve a maximum 30-year sentence.

Human rights groups welcomed the verdict, which they said would help end impunity for Brazil's notoriously violent police force.