The desperate search after the collapse of the dam in Brazil: the relatives seek victims in the mud

Under the hot sun, Tereza Ferreira Nascimento dug in the mud with garden tools Wednesday look for his brother Paulo Giovane dos Santos, resigned to the fact that he probably died five days after the dismantling of a mining waste dam in southeastern Brazil. This is one of many similar cases: prisoners of helplessness, Brumadinho's parents and neighbors are desperate to find the missing. They do what they can.

After the collapse of the Vale dam, a sea of ​​mud covered several areas of the city of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, southeast Brazil. Until now, they are registered 99 people killed and the disappearance of 259.

As search and rescue efforts continue, Brazilian authorities are attempting to slow the spread of red-hot mud with a high concentration of iron oxide, which flows into a creek and threatens to pollute a much larger river which provides drinking water to five-state populations.

It could take days or weeks before many bodies are found He has depth meters. Firefighters have to work carefully not to get caught in very hostile terrain AP.

During this time, the debris changed the color of the generally green Paraopeba River about 18 km downstream of Brumadinho, where the dam is located. The Paraopeba flows into Sao Francisco, a much larger river than provides clean water and the irrigation of hundreds of municipalities and large cities such as Petrolina, in the state of Pernambuco, 1,400 kilometers from Brumadinho.

In the indigenous community of Pataxco, near the Paraopeba River, Dead fish could be seen and stay like plastic sandals on the shore. "We used the river to bathe, fish, get water for our plants, and now we can not do anything about it," said Hayo, one of the members.

Contamination in rivers where mining waste is dumped, which contains large amounts of fine particles of iron and other heavy metals, it can last for years or decadessaid Joao Paulo Machado Torres, professor in charge of the biophysics program of the environment at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Efforts to repair the environmental damage caused by this incident are still ongoing, and Machado Torres said that repairing those caused by Friday's crash would mean "a great effort to recover any type of life ".