Thirty one inmates died and more than 30 others were injured Sunday in two separate incidents in a prison in Ecuador, corrections officials in the South American country said.

Initially, the National Service for Comprehensive Care of Adults Deprived of Liberty and Juvenile Offenders (SNAI) reported that in an initial riot, four inmates had died and more than three dozen were injured at the Machala prison, 373 kilometers (231 miles) south of Quito, in the province of El Oro.

Hours later, the agency said in a new statement that, “in a separate incident,” 27 inmates died of ‘asphyxiation’ in the same prison.

The riot stemmed from the “reorganization of inmates” to a new maximum-security prison that will soon begin operating in a different province, according to a statement from Ecuador’s prison oversight agency.

The Associated Press requested further information from the SNAI press office but received no response.

The violent incident happened less than two months after 14 inmates died at the same facility in what authorities described as a dispute between gangs.

Officials said authorities regained control of the facility following the riot, which also injured one police officer.

The conditions of the injured were not immediately clear Sunday.

Ecuador’s prisons have become among the deadliest in Latin America as overcrowding, corruption and weak state control have allowed gangs connected to drug traffickers in Colombia and Mexico to proliferate.

Many are heavily armed with weapons smuggled in from the outside and continue to organize criminal activity from behind bars.

More than 500 people have died in prison riots since 2021.

Last year, a series of coordinated riots across multiple prisons led to the hostage-taking of 150 prison guards.

AP video by Martha Constante