Brazilian rescue workers searched for hundreds of people missing and feared dead under a sea of mud after a tailings dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA, killing at least 34 people and halting mine operations.
BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) – Brazilian rescue workers searched for hundreds of people missing and feared dead under a sea of mud after a tailings dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA (VALE3. SA), killing at least 34 people and halting mine operations.
The dam ruptured on Friday, releasing a torrent of mud that tore through the miner’s offices and cut through a nearby town, leaving a roughly 150-meter-wide (500-foot-wide) wake of destruction stretching for miles (km).
The Minas Gerais state fire department, which gave the latest confirmed death toll, also said 23 people had been sent to hospitals. Some 250 people remained missing, according to a list released by Vale.
Firefighters focused their hopes for finding survivors on a bus, a train, offices and nearby homes that were buried after the dam break at Vale’s Corrego do Feijao mine in Minas Gerais state.
Reuters witnesses saw homes knocked over, roadway washed out and a rail bridge demolished by the wave of mud.
Frantic family members of the missing crowded into a warehouse set up by Vale for those affected, next to a stretch of river erased by the sludge. More than a dozen helicopters helping to survey the area took off and landed from a soccer field nearby.
“Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of finding survivors are minimal. We’re likely to just be recovering bodies,” Romeu Zema, governor of Minas Gerais, told local media.
During a news conference, Zema said the mining complex had all its permits in order and it was unclear what caused the collapse of the dam, which had been inactive for years.
