SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) – Brazilian authorities on Saturday quelled three prison rebellions that broke out a day earlier, killing one inmate, but riots erupted at four more prisons, officials and local media reported.

The uprisings came a month after jailed gang members launched a wave of street violence and prison rebellions that left almost 200 people dead in Sao Paulo state, in an unprecedented crime spree that terrified residents.

One inmate was killed in a settling of scores among prisoners, according to reports from the Agencia Estado news service and the website of Folha de S Paulo, Brazil’s largest newspaper.

Sao Paulo’s state government issued a statement confirming the three rebellions that started Friday were over, but did not provide more details. Prison officials did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment.

The media reports also said an undetermined number of guards and inmates suffered unspecified injuries after riot police were deployed to reassume control over the three prisons in small cities hundreds of kilometers (miles) from Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.

Inmates were still in control of a prison taken over Thursday in the state of Espritu Santo, just north of Rio de Janeiro.

There were no immediate reports on injuries or deaths in Saturday’s uprisings, which happened in three Sao Paulo state adult prisons and a juvenile facility near the city.

The riots came just over a month after jailed leaders of the First Capital Command gang, known as the PCC, allegedly launched a wave of attacks on police in Sao Paulo, enraged by a move to transfer gang leaders to more secure prisons.

After the May 11 transfers, officials said, the gang ordered violence that erupted on May 12 with a wave of prison riots and attacks outside prison that left 41 officers and prison guards dead. Police struck back, killing 123 people, many described as gang members.

Twenty-three inmates also died in the prison rebellions.

Alcides da Silva, who leads the union of Sao Paulo state prison guards, said at least one of the new rebellions was started by the PCC.

In the riot in the city of Vitoria in Espiritu Santo state, 750 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of Sao Paulo, inmates took six hostages.

Television footage showed prisoners beating a guard, then suspending him with makeshift ropes fashioned from bed sheets over the edge of a 12- metre-high (40-foot-high) wall.

That riot started on Thursday when authorities foiled an escape plan. Prison officials said the inmates were demanding the return of five transferred prisoners.

Prisoners at the Sao Paulo lockups did not immediately make demands, prison officials told Folha de S Paulo.

The PCC and other gangs originally formed to pressure for improved prison conditions, but they quickly began using their power inside prisons to direct drug-dealing and extortion operations on the outside.

There are no official numbers on the gang’s size, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 100,000. Gang members are believed to be involved in drug and arms trafficking, bank holdups, kidnappings, extortion and killings.

A gang leader told Brazilian lawmakers this month that the PCC exerts influence over 95 per cent of the 140,000 inmates locked up in Sao Paulo state.