The death toll from fire and clashes between rival gangs at a women's prison in Honduras has risen to 46, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday, as the first bodies were handed over to mourning families for burial.

The violence erupted at a prison about 25 kilometers north of the capital Tegucigalpa Tuesday, when members of a gang burst into an area housing a rival group, shot at them with heavy-caliber weapons, and set the place on fire.

Part of the prison was "completely destroyed" in the blaze, Delma Ordonez, who represents inmates' relatives, told the media.

Wednesday, the prosecutor's office upped the confirmed death toll from 41 to 46. It was still unclear if all the victims were inmates.

The CEFAS correctional facility in Tamara held about 900 prisoners, according to Ordonez.

A spokeswoman for the Forensic Medicine Directorate Issa Alvarado said 23 of the bodies had been identified by Wednesday morning and handed over to relatives.

Identification was continuing "in complex cases," the prosecutor's office said on its Twitter account.

Most of the victims died in the fire, while some of the bodies were riddled with bullets, a spokesperson for the prosecutor's office, Yuri Mora, told AFP Tuesday.