translated from Spanish: The balance of deaths rises to 121 by rupture of mining dam in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro-increased from 115 to 121 people who have lost their lives as a result of the rupture of a mining company Vale waste dam in the southeast of Brazil’s widening, according to the last balance sheet released Saturday by authorities. The fire of the Minas Gerais State also explained that there are still missing 226 and that 93 bodies already were identified, on the ninth day of intense searches. The tragedy sowed mourning Brumadinho, a town of 39,000 inhabitants 60 km from Belo Horizonte (capital of Minas), when a dike of the mining complex Córrego do Feijão broke last January 25, generating a huge tide of mud that swept away everything what found to his step. This Friday, the local television reported a shocking series of videos from security cameras showing the exact moment in which gigantic waste dam collapses and the tsunami of mud slides at full speed. Most of the dead and disappeared, they were working in the mine of Vale and many of them were having lunch in the company canteen, one of the first structures to be reached by the flood of mud. The searches, in charge of about 250 firefighters and several helicopters, will continue indefinitely, but expected the number of confirmed dead to slowly raise given the difficulty of access to some areas. Explained the press Pedro Aihara, spokesman for the Fire Department, at some points sludge reaches 20 meters, which makes more complicated the work of excavation. The tragedy, whose environmental impact is still unknown, takes place only three years after a similar accident in the same region, in a mine of Samarco (a joint project of Vale and Australia’s BHP).  The disaster that hit the city of Mariana in 2015 left a lower number of deaths (19), but devastated whole ecosystems and became the worst environmental disaster in the history of Brazil. In this note:

Original source in Spanish