PESHAWAR, Oct 31: Hundreds of prisoners have been shifted from the earthquake-hit areas to other prisons after authorities declared them (prisons) unsafe for inmates, officials said.

A sub-jail in Battagram district has been destroyed, while the building of district jail Swat has been declared dangerous.

The authorities have evacuated the building and shifted about 500 inmates to Bunner, Haripur, Malakand, Timergara and Peshawar.

Provincial Home Secretary Badsha Gul Wazir said that the building of the sub-jail Battagram had razed to the ground. All the inmates went unhurt. They had been shifted to the nearest districts.

Twenty-five inmates from Battagram jail had been shifted to district jail Abbottabad, which has also been partially damaged.

District Coordination Officer (DCO), Swat, Shah Hussain Afridi told Dawn by phone that after the devastating earthquake major cracks had appeared in the building and the prisoners had been evacuated.

He said that engineers inspected the jail building and declared it unsafe.

He said the building housed 500 inmates who had been taken to other jails in the province. Under trial prisoners had been kept in the nearest districts, he said.

Officials said that the building of district jail Mansehra, which was commissioned in the year 2003, had suffered serious damage due to the October 8 quake. The building was constructed at a cost of Rs40 million.

An official said that the main boundary wall of the jail and front walls of its three barracks had developed major cracks. At present the jail houses more than 300 prisoners.

“We have security problem,” the official said, adding that the department concerned had been informed about the situation and requested to repair the building immediately.