At least 41 prisoners have died and dozens more have been injured by a fire which tore through an overcrowded jail in Indonesia.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of blaze that started at Block C of Tangerang prison on the outskirts of Jakarta designated for drug offenders, said Rika Aprianti, spokesperson for the corrections department at the Justice Ministry.

Hundreds of police and soldiers were deployed to take control of Tangerang prison, which was designed to house 1,225 inmates but has more than 2,000, Ms Aprianti said.

Block C housed 122 convicts when the fire occurred.

She said the fire has since been extinguished and all victims have been evacuated to a hospital.

Jailbreaks and riots that lead to fire are common in Indonesia, where overcrowding has become a problem in prisons that are struggling with poor funding and large numbers of people arrested in a war on illegal drugs.