Mexico City - A jail mutiny in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana left at least 19 people dead and some 50 injured, authorities in the state of Baja California said in media reports on Thursday.

Some 300 inmates reportedly took part in the mutiny that began in the area of the prison reserved for women and then spread across the facility on Wednesday, just three days after another mutiny left three people dead in the same prison.

State and federal police officers managed to put down the uprising late Wednesday.

Eyewitnesses said shots and machine-gun fine were heard for hours inside the jail, near the US border.

Inmates were demanding better treatment, food and drinking water.

"I saw four (dead people). They were shot in the head," one inmate was quoted as saying by the daily Reforma.

Outside the prison, relatives of the prisoners also clashed with police, and several schools nearby were evacuated as a preventive measure.

Some 250 inmates were transferred to the jail in El Hongo, in the town of Tecate. (dpa)