WASHINGTON -- The US police have widened a massive four-day manhunt for two escaped murder suspects after they broke jail in South Carolina, the authorities said Tuesday.

Three inmates escaped on Saturday night at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center, according to local media reports.

The escape happened after an electrical shortage opened cell doors in one section of the jail, then about 40 inmates filed into a common area, said a CBS News report.

In less than 10 minutes, they threw blankets over barbed wire, jumped the fence and ran off toward the woods, said the report.

One of them, Christopher Boltin, was recaptured on Sunday, but the other two, 27-year-old Tyshon Johnson and 20-year-old Curtis Green, are still at large, said police, noting they are murder suspects and may be armed and dangerous.