The chaos that erupted Tuesday at the La Joyita jail east of Panama City took place inside a block that houses inmates who belong to the same local gang, officials said.

“These firearms didn’t fall out of the sky, there was obviously some type of cooperation there for firearms to be brought in,” President Laurentino Cortizo said following the shooting, according to the BBC.

Cortizo vowed to launch an investigation into how the weapons were smuggled inside the jail and is reported to be meeting with his security council Wednesday to discuss the matter. Five pistols and three AK-47 assault rifles were found after the shooting.

“It’s something we have to put a stop to. A few weeks ago a search was carried out [in the prison] and arms were found, and now again, so someone is letting these guns in,” Cortizo was quoted by the BBC as saying.

Alexis Muñoz, assistant director of the National Police, also said such smuggling has been a longstanding problem and “there are many ways that weapons can get in.”

In addition to the 13 inmates killed, 15 others were injured during the gunfire.

Muñoz, the BBC said, announced that the shootout unfolded after gang members had “an internal disagreement.”

The Interior Department said no guards or prison personnel were hurt in the confrontation and no escapes were reported.

Yorgen Fenech, a leading hotelier and former director of the Maltese power company, was also charged Saturday with promoting, organizing or financing a group with the intention of committing a crime.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the “group” referred to the three men being held since December 2017 on charges of carrying out the bombing.

Fenech pleaded not guilty in the evening courtroom hearing, just 10 days after police arrested him aboard his yacht as it was sailing away from Malta.

He was detained a day after a man identified as the alleged middleman in the murder plot agreed to give authorities information leading to the individual who ordered the killing in exchange for a presidential pardon.

Fenech’s name was on leaked documents as a source of income for companies named in the Panama Papers, a financial scandal Caruana Galizia was investigating before her death. She alleged that Maltese politicians were linked to companies named in the papers.

Following Caruana Galizia’s death, her reporting was continued by the Daphne Project. The group reported last year that Malta’s anti-laundering watchdog identified Fenech as the owner of 17 Black, the businessman’s clandestine Dubai-registered company.

Leaked emails showed the company stood to make payments to two Panama companies – one being listed in the name of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff – for unspecified services.

Keith Schembri resigned as Muscat’s chief of staff last week after police detained him for questioning in the murder. Police said there weren’t grounds to hold him and he was later released. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, the embattled Muscat has been facing calls to resign over the alleged links of Schembri to the murder of Caruana Galizia.

While the prime minister’s fellow Labor Party lawmakers have backed him with a pledge of confidence, local media have said Muscat, who has held power since 2013, might stay in office until January, when a party congress must elect a new leader.

The organizing committee focused on increasing the participation of travel agencies, hotel groups, tour operators and other stakeholders in the tourism industry in the United States, Europe and China.

The Expo Tourism International brings hundreds of exhibiting companies including airlines, Ministries of tourism, hotels and travel agencies from countries in the Americas and other parts of the World.

According to the United States Geological Survey, the very trong tremor was centred seven kilometers southeast of the town of Plaza de Caisan at a depth of 37km.

The Sinaproc, or National Civil Protection System said that five people were wounded and four homes were destroyed in the quake. Two of the damaged homes also collapsed, Sinaproc added.

Disturbing Images posted on social media revealed simple wooden homes that fell in rural areas, deep fissures in tightly packed beach sand and entire grocery store shelves that spilled containers of processed food and bottled beverages on the floor.

“I was in the supermarket and everything swayed,” Carla Chavez told The Associated Press news agency by phone from David, the capital of Panama’s Chiriqui province near the quake’s epicentre. “Merchandise fell on the floor. Everything happened so fast.”

President Juan Carlos Varela posted on Twitter earlier that just one person was hurt, in Puerto Armuelles, and also reported damage to homes and businesses.

Panama’s National Civil Protection Service said on Twitter that walls cracked at a hospital and two supermarkets in Changuinola in Bocas del Toro province.

However, there was no tsunami alert issued from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Head of operations for Costa Rica’s National Commission of Emergencies, Sigifredo Perez, reported that no major damage or injuries had been reported in his country.