There are at least 40 dead as a result of the collapse of Brazil and their numbers will increase

Firefighters reported this figure after hours of searching, digging under meters of mud in the midst of intermittent rains. During, There are 23 people hospitalized.

Employees of the Vale mining company were having lunch on Friday when the dam collapsed, releasing a torrent of reddish-brown mud that knocked down and buried several buildings of the company and its surroundings.

After a full day of the disaster, finding many more survivors seemed more and more unlikely.

"The most likely thing is that we now recover the bodies"said Romeu Zema, governor of the state of Minas Gerais. He added that those responsible "they will be punished".

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The drama

The Folha newspaper in Sao Paulo reported Saturday that the dam mining complex had received expansion approval in December due to a "reduced risk". Meanwhile, conservation groups in the region say that the approval was illegal.

Lieutenant Pedro Aihara, a spokesman for state firefighters, told reporters that they had found a bus that they thought could be filled with corpses. However, access to the bus, buried under several meters of mud, proved difficult.

"We need a special machine to access the structure and recover the victims," ​​Aihara said. He added, "The death toll will increase."

However, there were some signs of hope. The authorities announced that they found 43 more alive people on Saturday, although the number of missing is still 300.

Help from Israel

Israel has announced that it will send a mission to Brazil to participate in rescue operations and provide badistance. The mission will leave in 24 hours, according to a statement released Saturday by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu offered his help during a phone conversation with the Brazilian president. Bolsonaro agreed.

Rivers of mine waste had already caused widespread contamination.

According to Vale's website, wastes, often called residues, are mostly sand-based and non-toxic. However, a UN report revealed that waste from a similar disaster in 2015 "contained large amounts of toxic heavy metals".

In his campaign, Bolsonaro had promised to boost the Brazilian economy in part through the removal of controls on the mining and other industries.

Environmental groups and activists said Friday's tailings leak revealed a lack of controls.

The latest spill "is a sad consequence of lessons that the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy of the Samarco dam, also controlled by Vale, in Mariana" have not learned, "Greenpeace said in a statement .

"The story is repeated," tweeted Marina Silva, former environment minister and presidential candidate three times. "It is unacceptable that the government and the mining companies have learned nothing."