At least 33 prisoners have been killed in a prison in northern Brazil, just days after 56 died during a jail riot in a neighbouring state.

The local secretary of justice, Uziel Castro, told the BBC he blamed the deaths in the prison in the state of Roraima on a drug gang.

He said some bodies had been found decapitated after the incident in the Penitenciária Agrícola de Monte Cristo.

But the situation was now under control, he added.

Officials told local media that a group of prisoners managed to break the locks on their cells in the early hours of the morning and invade a separate wing of the building, which is in the city of Boa Vista.

Special forces are on site.

Mr Castro attributed the killings at the prison, which Il Globo reported was housing 1,400 inmates, double its capacity, to a gang known as the PCC (standing for First Command in the Capital).

A 2012 government report said the gang was the largest in Brazil, earning $32m (£25.9m) a year in drug sales, with almost half its 13,000 members in jail in Sao Paulo State, where the gang originated.

It is unclear if this latest incident is related to Sunday's riot in Manaus, when PCC members clashed with members of a rival gang, Family of the North (FDN).

The resulting 17-hour prison uprising was the deadliest in Brazil in years.

Officials say police have managed to recapture 40 of the 87 prisoners who escaped in that break-out.