A Brazilian miner claims that 400 people are missing because of the collapse of a dike

On its website, the firm published the list "will be updated constantly as people are localized", according to the company release.

He has also activated a phone for his employees.

The figure revealed by Vale is much wider than that announced by firefighters of Minas Gerais, who said he was looking for at least 300 missing persons, while the death toll is now 9.

President Jair Bolsonaro flew over the area covered by an avalanche of mud, killing at least nine people.

On board a helicopter, Bolsonaro observed the situation in the town of Brumadinho, 39 000 inhabitants, partially covered by the quagmire.

The president has formed a crisis committee composed of several ministers with whom he will meet this Saturday at Cofins airport in Belo Horizonte, the mining capital.

According to the latest official report, 9 people have died and 23 are hospitalized.

In a message read a few hours ago by Rego Barros in the Plbadto presidential palace, the government regretted "Possible loss of life caused by dam failure"

Aerial images transmitted by the press show that the mud has advanced on the neighborhood and destroyed several houses.

Firefighters resumed the search for survivors in Brumadinho, although the governor of the state, Romeu Zema, said that the chances of saving the survivors "They are minimal" and that from that moment "probably" they would be saved "only bodies".