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A dam that held back mining waste has collapsed in Brazil, inundating a nearby community with reddish-brown sludge, killing at least 34 people and leaving hundreds of others missing.
Key points:
- Nine people have been reported dead and about 300 are still missing
- Mining company Vale SA says it is too soon to know why the dam collapsed
- Another Brazilian dam owned by Vale and BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the worst environmental disaster in the country's history
About 300 people are still missing, while firemen running the rescue effort in the town of Brumadinho say nearly 200 people have been rescued.
Nearly a full day since the disaster happened, it was looking increasingly unlikely many more survivors would be found.
"Most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies," said Romeu Zema, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais.
This marks the second dam burst in just over three years from Brazilian mining company Vale SA in the mining-heavy state.
Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said only one-third of the roughly 300 workers at the site had been accounted for.
He said a torrent of sludge tore through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime.
The death toll was expected to rise sharply.
Parts of Brumadinho were evacuated and local firefighters were rescuing people by helicopter and ground vehicles.
Local television channel TV Record showed a firefighters' helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the sludge.
Photos showed the rooftops of structures poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads.
The National Mining Agency ordered Vale, the largest producer of iron ore in the world, to halt operations at the Corrego do Feijao mine.
State prosecutors requested that 5 billion reais ($1.85 billion) in Vale's assets be frozen to help pay for damages while the environmental agency issued a 250 million reais fine over the dam collapse.
President Jair Bolsonaro sent a tweet saying he lamented the incident and was sending three Cabinet Ministers to the area.
Mr Schvartsman said the dam had a capacity of 12 million cubic metres and was being decommissioned. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on January 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed.
"The environmental impact should be much less, but the human tragedy is horrible," he told journalists at Vale's offices in Rio de Janeiro.
Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in 2015, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds of people out of their homes.
That was considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, with 60 million cubic meters of waste flooding rivers and eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
The rivers of mining waste are raising fears of widespread contamination.
Deluge stops short of important tributary
Fire brigade spokesman Lieutenant Pedro Aihara said the torrent of mud stopped just short of the local Paraopeba river, a tributary of Brazil's longest river, the Sao Francisco.
"Our main worry now is to quickly find out where the missing people are," Mr Aihara said on GloboNews cable television channel.
Scores of people were trapped in nearby areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam failure.
Helicopters plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said.
The Inhotim Institute, a world-famous outdoor contemporary art museum a few miles from downtown Brumadinho, evacuated visitors and closed its doors out of precaution.
'History repeats itself'
The Feijao mine is one of four in Vale's Paraoeba complex, which includes two processing plants and produced 26 million tonnes of iron ore in 2017, or about 7 per cent of Vale's total output, according to information on the company's website.
Feijao alone produced 7.8 million tonnes of ore in 2017.
Brazil's recently inaugurated President Jair Bolsonaro dispatched three ministers to survey the disaster area and will visit himself on Saturday, his chief spokesman said.
Former environmental minister and presidential candidate Marina Silva said Brazilian authorities and private miners had not learned anything from the 2015 Samarco disaster near Mariana and called it unacceptable.
Operations at Samarco remain halted over new licensing, while the companies have worked to pay damages out of court, including an agreement that quashed a 20 billion reais ($7.376 billion) civil lawsuit last year. Federal prosecutors suspended the case but have still not closed an even larger lawsuit.
"Three years after the serious environmental crime in Mariana, with investigations still ongoing and no-one punished, history repeats itself as tragedy in Brumadinho," Ms Silva said on Twitter.
Iron ore prices are likely to rise in the wake of the disaster as there may be less supply on the market for the short term, said Chris LaFemina, a Jefferies mining industry analyst.
That could boost the share price of rivals Rio Tinto Plc and Anglo American Plc, while weighing on Vale, he said. US-listed shares of Vale closed 8 per cent lower on Friday.
"While we hope the reports of fatalities are inaccurate, we do believe this is a material negative for Vale," Mr LaFemina said.
"The full extent of the damage and the potential impact on iron ore markets are not clear."
Mr Schvartsman declined to comment on how output would be affected.
ABC/wires
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, environmental-impact, mining-environmental-issues, mining-industry, brazil
First posted