Images of bloody bodies from inside the facility spread on social media after the riot and family members of inmates gathered on Thursday outside the prison, worried about their relatives.
This is the second deadly prison riot in just a few days. On Monday, thirteen inmates and a prison employee died in violence at a prison in Machala in the southwestern part of the country.
The previously relatively safe Ecuador has in recent years been hit by a strong wave of violence linked to organized crime. The country, which is located between Colombia and Peru where a large part of the world's cocaine is produced, has been exploited by the drug cartels as a new transit country for exports to Europe and North America.
Hundreds of prisoners have been killed in the brutal gang wars that have followed in the wake of development.
