More than 270 prisoners have escaped during an evacuation operation after floods damaged a prison complex in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri.

The BBC reported Monday that many inmates escaped from a prison damaged by flooding caused by heavy rains in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Umar Abubakar, spokesman for the Nigerian Prisons Service, said in a statement that the prisoners escaped while being moved to a safer location after the walls of the prison were damaged by floodwaters.

He added that authorities arrested seven of the escaped prisoners in operations carried out by security agencies.

Flooding caused by heavy rains in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri early last week killed 30 people, according to preliminary estimates.