Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: Image copyright AFP Image caption Inmates at Colombo jail - more than 400 prisoners are on death row in Sri Lanka 
  
 A newly recruited hangman in Sri Lanka has resigned in shock after being shown the gallows for the first time. 
  
 The country has not carried out a judicial execution since 1976 but has over 400 prisoners on death row. 
  
 The authorities want to have an executioner ready in case hangings resume. 
  
 But three recruits have now abandoned the job within a year after the previous hangman was promoted to become a prison guard. 
  
 Commissioner-General of Prisons Chandrarathna Pallegama told the BBC that the new recruit - reported to be 40 and from the town of Anuradhapura - "got shocked and afraid" after seeing the gallows, which came after several days of training. 
  
 He had written a letter saying he wanted to resign and had failed to report for training since Monday. 
  
 Mr Pallegama said the man would be given one month to consider his decision. If there was no change, fresh applications would be called for through a government gazette. 
  
 The last permanent hangman had also said the gallows made him nervous, and he felt he was lucky only to have done clerical work despite his job title. 
  
 Two men were then recruited from among 176 applicants but quit the job last year after going on unauthorised leave, reports said. 
  
 The man who has just resigned is reported to have been the third-placed applicant from that process. 
  
 Any new execution in Sri Lanka would have to be authorised by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. 
  
 Those on death row do not include former members of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) or LTTE suspects. ||||| March 20 marks the official start of spring, but for many others, the long winter is yet to end. 
  
 COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka is searching for a new hangman after the latest recruit got upset on seeing the gallows for the first time and quit, officials said on Tuesday. 
  
 The Prisons Department appointed the new hangman, the third most qualified from 176 applicants, last week, months after two hangmen chosen late last year failed to show up for work. 
  
 "We gave him one week's training, but he resigned after seeing the gallows, saying that he didn't want the job," Chandrarathna Pallegama, commissioner general of prisons, told Reuters. 
  
 "He told me that after seeing the gallows he got upset... Next time, we will show the gallows to the new recruits before giving them basic training." 
  
 But it's not as if he would have been likely to hang anyone anyway. The job is light administrative work only. 
  
 The Indian Ocean island nation, a predominantly Buddhist country, has not carried out an execution since 1976, despite the fact that there are at least 405 convicts on death row. 
  
 But an alarming rise in child abuse, rapes, murders, and drug trafficking in the country since the 25-year war against Tamil Tiger separatists ended in 2009 has prompted some lawyers and politicians to push for the death penalty to be reintroduced. 
  
 (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Nick Macfie) |||||
Output:
Sri Lanka is looking for a new hangman after its latest recruit quit in horror at his first sight of the gallows. The country's prison commissioner says the man was "shocked and afraid" after seeing the gallows after a week of training, reports the BBC. He is the third hangman to quit in the space of the year. "Next time, we will show the gallows to the new recruits before giving them basic training," the commissioner tells Reuters. Whoever gets the job will be mostly doing clerical work: The country hasn't executed anybody since 1976, though there are more than 400 inmates on death row.