Around 200 People Missing, Seven Dead, After Dam Bursts in Brazil
25 Enero 2019 - 06:36PM
Noticias Dow Jones
By Jeffrey T. Lewis, Samantha Pearson and Paulo Trevisani
SÃO PAULO -- Rescue workers raced Friday to find around 200
people feared buried under mud in southeastern Brazil after a dam
belonging to miner Vale burst, engulfing homes, cars, and the
company's own offices.
Brazil's Vale, the world's largest iron ore producer, said the
majority of victims were the company's own employees, adding that
it had only accounted for 100 of the estimated 300 workers at the
site so far. Authorities said they had recovered seven bodies as of
Friday evening.
A sea of mud swept through parts of the city of Brumadinho, a
popular tourist base for Brazil's vast Inhotim open-air art museum
in Minas Gerais state, thundering through Vale's offices as workers
sat down to lunch.
The incident comes less than four years after another dam owned
jointly by Vale and BHP Group in the same state also burst, killing
19 people and leaving hundreds homeless in one of the country's
worst environmental disasters.
Comparing the disasters, Fabio Schvartsman, Vale's chief
executive, said he feared a "terrible human tragedy" this time, but
added there would likely be less environmental damage than in 2015
because the waste material was more solid and wouldn't spread as
far. He gave no details about the possible cause of the
incident.
As rescue workers heaved people out of the mud, Brazil's new
President Jair Bolsonaro called together his three-week-old
administration for a crisis meeting in Brasília, the capital. In
2015, former President Dilma Rousseff was deeply criticized for
taking too long to respond when Vale's dam burst at Mariana, about
a three-hour drive away from Brumadinho.
"Our greatest concern at this moment is to deal with the victims
of this great tragedy," Mr. Bolsonaro said on Twitter. He said he
had sent troops and several ministers to the region and would
travel to the site Saturday morning.
In Brumadinho, relatives of victims scrambled to get information
from the authorities, who set up a crisis center at the local
university. Panic and desperation was quickly turning to anger with
few Vale representatives or authorities around to help.
Jose Ferreira said his sister's husband, who worked for one of
Vale's contractors, was still missing. "My sister is
devastated...these companies are destroying the environment to the
point they are destroying lives," said Mr. Ferreira, 34.
Vale's Mr. Schvartsman said the dam that burst Friday had been
out of operation for the past three years and was in the process of
being dismantled.
The company said that spillage also reached the community of
Vila Ferteco.
U.S.-listed shares of Vale plunged as much as 10% after the
accident. Brazil's stock market was closed for a public
holiday.
Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com, Samantha
Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com and Paulo Trevisani at
paulo.trevisani@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 25, 2019 19:21 ET (00:21 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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