The number of deaths due to the disaster of Brasí …

Rescuers working in Brumadinho, a Brazilian city in Minas Gerais, where a dike collapsed yesterday with mining waste from mining company Vale, continue to search for people who survived the disaster. However, as the hours go by, the number of deaths increases and nearly 300 disappear. At the same time, the Brazilian government imposed a first fine of $ 66.5 million on Vale, a company highly questioned by environmentalists who, in 2015, had already caused a similar disaster in another nearby city.

According to the latest count published by the authorities that coordinate the search and rescue tasks, the number of confirmed deaths is 34. This figure, which is much smaller because of the number of missing persons, confirms what was supposed to be the case. One principle: that the catastrophe is much greater than that caused by Vale a little over three years ago in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais, where 19 people died.

Buried in the mud, a collective was found. A spokesman for the fire department reported that all the occupants of a bus, who had been left in a hard-to-reach area and in which he was expected to find people alive, were dead.

The collective was one of four previously identified points with possible survivors. The others were a community, a building and a locomotive.

Brumadinho is a city located 60 km from Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais. Yesterday afternoon, the dam of the mining complex Córrego do Feijão, owned by Vale, a giant mining company, gave way and the waste of mining activity as well as the mud they drag buried the facilities of the company and all that they found on the site. not

In the area that has recorded scenes of desperation of those who have lost or do not know where are the family and friends. Aerial images show houses razed, animals bogged down, structures destroyed and vehicles covered by the impressive brown tide that also engulfs the vegetation of the region. People wander with pictures of missing family and friends.

State Governor Romeu Zema said the chances of saving the survivors were "minimal". Colonel Edgard Estevo, commander of the fire department in Minas Gerais, said that in any case, the task of the rescuers "will last for weeks in order to be able to give news to all the families of the missing".