His body was discovered by search and rescue teams on Sunday at the bottom of cliffs away from the centre, the department said.
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However, the group leading the unrest appears to be detainees being held there because their visas were cancelled, rather than asylum seekers, the Australian department of immigration said.
A New Zealand detainee, Ricky Downs, told TVNZ guards had fled.
The regulation has resulted in a large number of people who were long-term residents of Australia, including a few New Zealanders, being locked up in detention centres awaiting deportation or appeal.
The Christmas Island Immigration Detention Center lies on a remote Australian territory 2,650 kilometers (1,650 miles) northwest of Perth and housed 958 asylum seekers at the end of August 2015, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).
Access to the centre has been blocked off by police with Australian Border Force staff onsite and their vehicles, including a fire truck, seen leaving the area.
The man in his early 30s was recognised as a refugee upon arriving in the country in 2010 but his application was stalled because of an assault charge moved against him due to a fight between detainees at another detention facility, Refugee Action Coalition said.
A detained New Zealander, however, said parts of the detention center had been set on fire, objects had been smashed, and walls had been damaged.
Another detainee, who stressed that he had not been involved in the riots, said “most of the compounds have actually been broken into, including the medical [compound]”.
The Department of Immigration released a further statement on Monday morning, stating there was a “disturbance” in progress at the detention centre.
The unrest started after a small grouping of Iranian offenders began protesting concerning the death of an Iranian Kurd, Fazel Chegeni, who had escaped in the facility on Saturday, said the statement.
“If people have caused damage to Commonwealth property, they will be investigated and prosecuted in relation to those matters”, Dutton told parliament.
“I want nothing to do with it but all the young fellas are gee-d up and all they want to do is go to war with them”, he told Radio New Zealand via telephone, with sirens blaring in the background.
Others are sent to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the South Pacific.
“They are going to bash us and break bones”.
And Egypt’s Mohammed Elmolla said reports of “racial discrimination and violence, rising Islamaphobia, mandatory immigration detention and the policy of pushback of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers” boats in global waters require serious and prompt attention’.
“But for us, at the moment, the priority is to make sure that we can restore order within the centre, and the people on the ground are undertaking those activities”, he said.
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“The Australians aren’t interested in negotiating a peaceful resolution… they’ve gone to the expense of flying over reinforcements who’ve got to earn their money”.
