An armed gang has stormed one of the main television stations in Ecuador amid a state of emergency sparked after one of the country’s most dangerous men escaped from jail.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa made the announcement yesterday after drug cartel leader José Adolfo Macías Villamar broke free from a prison in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Sunday.

As tensions increased in the South American country, masked gangsters carrying machine guns, pistols and sticks of dynamite broke into the headquarters of the TC Televisión network.

Newspaper El Universo reported that journalists at the station had resorted to pleading for help in group chats.

One message read: ‘They want to kill us all. Help us.’

Staff could be seen being forced to sit and lie down on the floor of the news studio, before the live feed cut out.

Special police forces from Quito and Guayaquil have been deployed to the scene to deal with the chaos.

Mr Noboa, who was only elected to the position of president in October following an election marred by the assassination of one candidate, declared a state of emergency lasting two months on Monday.

This morning, nearly 40 inmates at another prison in the city of Riobamba also broke free as a growing wave of terror engulfs the country.