Brazil mud deluge threat remains
Print Edition
An alarm warning of an imminent dam rupture went off early yesterday in Brumadinho, the same Brazilian community where a dam collapsed killing 37 with hundreds more feared dead, firefighters and the mining company said.
The alert, warning of dangerously high water levels at a dam that is part of the Corrego do Feijao mining complex in southeastern Brazil, went off at 5:30am (07:30 GMT), a statement by the mining company Vale said.
A dam at the same site burst Friday, spewing out millions of tons of sludge and engulfing buildings, vehicles and roads.
Firefighters said they immediately began evacuating communities near the dam.
鈥淎ttention, general area evacuation!鈥 blared a warning through loudspeakers in Brumadinho, population 39,000. 鈥淔ind the highest point in the city,鈥 the warning said.
Vale鈥檚 CEO Fabio Schvartsman and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema earlier warned that the death toll from the Friday rupture could rise.
鈥淔rom now, the odds are minimal (of finding more people alive) and it is most likely we will recover only bodies,鈥 Zema told reporters late Friday.
In Rio, Schvartsman spoke of a 鈥渉uman tragedy.鈥
Search and rescue operations, suspended overnight because of rain, resumed at 4:00am.
Dozens of helicopters were set to be deployed because the mud was too treacherous for ground rescuers to venture into.
Firefighters said yesterday the death toll rose to 37 鈥 up from 34 the day before 鈥 with 192 people rescued. There was no update on the number of missing people.
Twenty-three of the survivors were hospitalized with injuries, officials said.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro flew over the devastated zone on Saturday, later tweeting that it was 鈥渄ifficult to not be emotional before this scene.鈥
All was being done to care for survivors and 鈥渄etermine the facts, to demand justice and prevent new tragedies,鈥 he added.
The military said it had deployed 1,000 soldiers, including sniffer dogs, to the disaster zone.
Separately, an Israeli team of 130 soldiers equipped with cellular location equipment, drones and naval sonars was set to reach the area yesterday to help search for survivors and bodies, an Israeli military spokesman said. The team is expected to stay for one week.
The disaster was the first emergency faced by Bolsonaro and his government since he took office in early January, and may be one of the deadliest disasters in Brazil鈥檚 history.
Vale has been shaken by the disaster, the second in three years it has suffered in the same state.
Workers at its mine had been at lunch in an administrative area Friday when they were suddenly swamped by millions of tons of muddy tailings 鈥 a waste by-product of the iron-ore mining operations.
The ruptured dam, 42 years old, had been in the process of being decommissioned.
After overflowing a second dam, the mud barreled down toward Brumadinho before roaring through vegetation and farmland, smashing houses and swallowing tractors and roads in its path.
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