Manila urged to fix prison conditions

Images of hellish conditions at an overcrowded Philippines jail triggered calls on Thursday from lawmakers and rights groups for swift reforms to the penal system which is under strain from an anti-drugs crackdown.

The Quezon City Jail, where thousands of inmates are forced to sleep on stairs or on cracked cement floors in unimaginable squalor, is an example of the crisis which is worsening under President Rodrigo Duterte's war on crime.

"It's an image straight out of Dante's Purgatory, a rights groups said, referring to the 13th Century Italian writer's description of the realm where souls await judgment.