Mexico has released a video showing the moment that fugitive drug lord Joaquin `El Chapo' Guzman goes into his prison cell's shower before disappearing.
The surveillance camera footage shows Guzman pacing back and forth several times in the cell before bending down behind a short dividing wall in the shower space, but the hole through which he escaped is not visible.
National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said Guzman's behaviour before he vanished late on Saturday was normal for an inmate in a maximum-security prison.
"It's a natural behaviour for prisoners in a confined space for a prolonged time," Rubido told reporters.
The government also showed a video of the 1.5km escape tunnel, which had a rail system for a motorcycle with a metal cart for it to ride on.
The release of the footage comes after Mexico's government offered a $US3.8 million ($A5.13 million) reward for drug lord's capture.
Top prison officials have also been sacked amid suspicions guards helped him escape.
Guzman vanished from his cell late on Saturday even though he was wearing a monitoring bracelet and surveillance cameras were trained on the room 24 hours a day, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said.
Osorio Chong said Guzman "must have counted on the complicity of prison personnel ... which if confirmed would constitute an act of treason".
Guzman had been behind bars for just 17 months when he escaped for the second time since 2001, dealing a humiliating setback to President Enrique Pena Nieto and overshadowing a state visit to France.
This time, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel managed to flee a maximum-security prison 90 kilometres west of Mexico City through a 1.5-kilometre tunnel found under his cell's shower.
"What happened two days ago is a terrible event that has angered Mexican society," Osorio Chong said on Monday.
While cameras were constantly trained on the cell, Osorio Chong said there were "two blind spots" to respect the inmate's privacy "and human rights", and he managed to remove the bracelet, which only worked inside the prison.
Osorio Chong said he decided to fire the Altiplano prison's director as well as the head of the nation's penitentiary system and general co-ordinator "to facilitate" the investigation.
Attorney-General Arely Gomez said 34 prison officials and 17 inmates were interrogated by prosecutors. No charges have been announced so far.
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