QUITO, Feb 25: Seventy nine prisoners were killed in simultaneous riots in four overcrowded prisons in three cities of Guayaquil, Cuenca and Latacunga across Ecuador on Tuesday in what has beeen described as a gang war for supremacy. Eighteen of them were found decapitated and dismembered.

President Lenin Moreno clamped a temporary state of emergency in all prisons to control the violence. The authorities say the situation is under control. This is the worst prison riots in the country's history. Relatives and friends gathered outside the prisons.

There were 38,000 prisoners in the South American nation's prisons while they have a capacity for 27,000 only. Last year in similar riots 51 prisoners were killed.

Police in Ecuador say riots have again broken out between gangs in a prison in the city of Guayaquil.

Battles among rival gangs vying for leadership inside the overcrowded prison system were blamed for the violence at facilities in the cities of Guayaquil, Cuenca and Latacunga. Authorities said on February 24 that they had regained control, but the following day the head of Ecuador's national police wrote on Twitter that a new prison mutiny was under way in Guayaquil, according to SCMP.

Ecuador straddles the equator on South America’s west coast. Its diverse landscape includes Amazon jungles while its Capital Quito is known for its Spanish colonial structures.