A dam has collapsed in an iron mine in Brazil, and it may have cost many people their lives.
the Head of the mining company Vale says that he misses 200 of its approximately 300 employees in the area.
This writes the news agency Reuters.
the Dam collapsed, just as the miners sat for lunch, and according to managing director Fabio Schvartsman was sent large amounts of mud into the lunch room.
the Mud from the dam swept towards the town of Brumadinho. Brumadinhos mayor says at 23 o’clock Danish time, to so far found seven corpses.
the Fire department said earlier on Friday that you were looking after around 200 people, and that many feared to be captured by the mud, which is swept through an area in connection with the dæmningens collapse.
the Pond above the dam could, according to my company director accommodate up to 12 million cubic meters of water. It was about to be discontinued.
Parts of the city of Brumadinho has been evacuated, writes the news agency AP. Local tv pictures show that the fire service in the helicopters in the air and cars on the ground trying to rescue survivors out of the mud.
another dam owned by the mining company Vale collapsed in 2015 in the brazilian city of Mariana in the state of Minas Gerais, which killed 19 people.
It led to one of the worst ecological disasters in Brazil’s history, in which about 250,000 people were left without drinking water.
the Director of the mining company says that the new collapse “is a human tragedy that is much larger than in the Mariana”.
But he adds that the environmental impact is not expected to be just as big, writes AP.
– The main victims are our own employees, says minedirektør Fabio Schvartsman at a press conference Friday evening.
According to the environmental stresses, the accident, that there is regulation enough in this area.
– It is the sad consequence of the fact that the brazilian government and the responsible mining companies have not learned the lesson, it sounds in a communication from Greenpeace.
