Brazil: the search for missing persons resumes and the balance raises to 58 dead

"There is no risk" on the second dam, said Lt. Col. Flávio Godinho, spokesman for the Civil Defense of the State of Minas Gerais. "The research was resumed (…) by land, with planes and dogs," he said from the operational center of Brumadinho, a town of 39,000 inhabitants.

Around 5:30 am (07:30 GMT), Vale, the owner of the Córrego mine in Feijao where the dams are located, set off the alarms before the risk of rupture of a dam loaded with 3 to 4 million cubic meters of water.

About 3,000 people were evacuated on the heights in the midst of panic and confusion.

"I had to go out with my family, my children … We are angry, tense, because leaving our home is not easy, we live there for 15 years," said José María Silva, 59, to AFP .

Vale said that the level of risk has gone from 2 to 1with which "those who had left their homes were allowed to return".

But many choose to stay in shelters. "People are afraid the siren will sound again, go home and do not know what to do" if another disaster occurs, says Dr. Maicon Nunes.

The authorities have managed to recover 58 corpses – of which only 16 have been identified – and represent 305 disappeared in the last official report.

A reduced house in ruins in the community of Cachoeira Park size desolation: the second floor is under the mud.

In addition to the tiles, you can see a sofa, a paradisiacal picture of the sea and paper flowers. At the entrance to what was a house, a poster: "Sonho Meu" (My dream).

A brown river of about 300 meters wide ahead of it, which also destroyed the vegetation in its path.

"We ran and saw that everything was fine, we lost everything," said Lauriane Oliveira da Souza, a resident of Brumadinho. "I got on my knees, started crying and was grateful because my family is alive," she said.

On Saturday, several helicopters searched for survivors in the vast muddy tide.

Despair has gripped those who have lost or do not know where their relatives and friends are, and some have walked around with pictures of missing parents.

President Jair Bolsonaro He accepted Israel's technological badistance to find missing persons, a country with which he seeks to strengthen his relations, while the government of Minas Gerais announced that 136 soldiers and 16 tons of Israeli equipment would arrive at night. In the region.

The right-wing leader pledged Saturday to "Investigate the facts, seek justice and prevent new tragedies like those of Mariana and Brumadinho."

Vale was also one of the owners of the dike that erupted in the neighboring municipality of Mariana in November 2015, killing 19 people and causing the worst ecological disaster in Brazil.

Justice has ordered the preventive blocking of Vale's 11,000 million reals (about $ 3,000 million)to compensate for the personal and environmental damage caused by this new tragedy.

"Vale was unimportant and incompetent, it ended our city." We expected Vale to learn from what happened in Mariana, it happened three years ago. and now, this is happening in our city, "said Brumadinho Mayor Avimar de Melo.

L & # 39; Company "He has not contacted us yet, we will see if he acts and compensates us, we do not deserve that"said Lauriane Oliveira da Souza.

The dam had not been used for three years and had been checked regularly, according to the firm.

The company said that until Saturday night, it had distributed a million liters of clean water and allowed the installation of 800 injured people. It also mobilized 40 ambulances and a helicopter to support relief operations.

The tragedy has sparked criticism from environmental organizations such as Greenpeace or SOS Mata Atlântica, political leaders and risk management experts.

"It is a government that does not indicate that it will act with greater control over the environmental issue (…) .It will consider that the companies a priori operate responsibly and that we find the opposite, "Luiz told AFP. Jardim Wanderley, mining specialist of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).

Wanderley claimed that "almost 10% of the dams have no guaranteed stability or that there is not enough information to define their status", so "we will have very probably other cases of lesser or greater magnitude, older. "