Avalanche in Brazil: already 34 dead and nearly 300 missing

At least 34 people have died and nearly 300 are still missing after the destruction of a dam of the Vale mining company in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where firefighters rescued 46 other survivors who were taken to various health centers, reported today sources. official

According to the DPA news agency, the Minas Gerais fire department informed the local press that the number of bodies found after the destruction of the Vale mining dam in Brumadinho amounted to 34 and confirmed the discovery of a bus with employees of the company whose none of the occupants survived.

"As it is a difficult place to access and we need special machines to access the structure and evacuate these victims, we still have not closed the number of dead, but this number will increase, "announced the fire department.

According to data published by the Brazilian agency, 166 Vale employees and 130 outsourced workers are still missing. of the 176 people found alive, 23 are hospitalized.

They fined the mining company Vale $ 66 million

In addition, heavy rain began to fall shortly after 3 pm in the city of Brumadinho, which may affect the work of the rescuers who focused on four areas where it is estimated that there may be survivors.

The rain also raised concerns about the risk of overflowing another dam, this one into water, where drainage equipment was installed.

The company's facilities and much of the city of Brumadinho were buried yesterday by the avalanche of mud caused by the rupture of a dam and the overflow of two others containing mineral waste from Vale, the largest producer of iron in the world.

"There is hope and the fire department will work tirelessly to examine the entire area with the possibility of live casualties and until the last moment (to locate) the missing victims" said Chief Fire Chief Edgar Estevo. da Silva.

The government of Minas Gerais has declared state of public calamity in Brumadinho, located about 4 kilometers from the large open air museum of Inhotim.

In addition, the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, today flown on a helicopter the area covered by the mudslide and observed the situation in the city of 39 000 inhabitants, partially covered by the quagmire, according to Ansa.

The President then met with the Crisis Committee of several Ministers at Cofins Airport in Belo Horizonte and signed a decree establishing the Ministerial Council for Disaster Response Monitoring, to be coordinated by the Minister. Foreign Affairs. Casa Civil, according to Bolsonaro himself on Twitter.

"The objective is to monitor and monitor the activities to be developed as a result of the disaster and to accompany the relief, badistance, restoration of the essential services concerned, restoration of ecosystems and reconstruction, "said the chairman of the social network.

For his part, the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, admitted that the probability of finding survivors is minimal and said that the number of victims could be higher than three years earlier, when the mining company Samarco broke dikes Vale has the participation, has caused the death of 19 people.

"The spill has characteristics different from Mariana's, which are hundreds of kilometers long and will cause more casualties, but will be more limited territorially," Zema said.

The Brazilian mining company Vale this morning reported a list of 411 names of staff with whom it still could not get in touch in the city of Brumadinho, and said that "it has made available 40 ambulances, 800 beds and a helicopter to facilitate rescue "and who works with the fire and civil defense corps with employees of the mining company and volunteers.

He also said that "he proceeds to drain dam 6 with the help of pumps, in order to reduce the amount of water, monitoring the structure every hour to determine its stability" which led the Civil Defense to evacuate the area. .