“According to accounts that we are receiving, there were several deaths,” he said.
Television images taken from the air showed a wide swath of devastation cut through vegetation and farmland in which several homes were seen, many damaged and some destroyed, with nothing but their tiled roofs left sitting on mud.
A rescue helicopter was seen hovering close to two survivors trapped up to their waist in mud, with its crew trying to pull them to safety.
Gay Brazilian lawmaker leaves job, country over death threats
The dam belonged to Brazil’s biggest mining company Vale, which confirmed its collapse and said “the total priority is to protect the lives of employees and inhabitants.”
Brumadinho’s municipality issued an alert on social media warning residents to move away from the Paraopeba river that the dam had been holding back.
The emergency recalled trauma from a 2015 dam break in a different part of the same state of Minas Gerais, at Mariana, in which 19 people died. That was considered the country’s worst environmental disaster.The cause of the collapse is unknown at this time, but weather didn't appear to be a factor.
The area of the collapse is below average for rainfall over the last 30 days, receiving just over an inch of rain since Jan. 1, according to senior weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman.
Mining dams can either hold water or potentially hazardous byproducts of the mining process, according to the Canadian Dam Association.
This is not the first time a serious mining dam collapse has hit Minas Gerais, Brazil. Another dam operated by Vale SA collapsed in 2015 killing at least 19 while also polluting waterways with toxic waste,
Brazilian mining giant Vale was hit with an initial $66.5 million fine Saturday over a dam collapse at one of its mines a day earlier that killed at least 10 people and left hundreds missing.
Brazilian mining giant Vale was hit with an initial $66.5 million fine Saturday over a dam collapse at one of its mines a day earlier that killed at least 10 people and left hundreds missing.
The amount, confirmed by multiple sources including a government official, was announced by the environment ministry, which did not immediately give an official figure.
It was levied by the government's environmental protection agency Ibama.
The penalty, for violations at the Vale iron ore mine in Brumaldinho, near the city of Belo Horizonte, will likely be followed by others as authorities evaluate the scale and gravity of the disaster, analysts told Brazilian media.
An official dealing with environmental issues in Minas Gerais state, where the dam collapse happened, told AFP the state was preparing another fine.
State authorities have already ordered $265 million in Vale's bank accounts be frozen with a view to making the funds available to victims of the disaster.
“The full force of the law” will be applied to those responsible, Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema told reporters.
Shares in Vale, one of the biggest mining companies in the world, fell 8 per cent in New York on Friday after the disaster occurred.
The company was involved in a similar dam collapse in 2015 at another mine it operated elsewhere in Minas Gerais in conjunction with Anglo-Australian company BHP.
In that case, their joint venture was slapped with a similar-sized fine that was later reduced, but which was in any case far eclipsed by an agreed $2.3-billion compensation payout — and an ever bigger lawsuit that is still pending.
Tags:
water