A home lays in ruins after a dam collapsed near Brumadinho, Brazil, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. Brazilian mining company Vale SA said it didn’t yet have information on deaths or injuries at the dam but said that tailings have reached the community of Vila Ferteco. (Leo Drumond/Nitro via AP)
January 25, 2019 - 3:05 PM
SAO PAULO - The Latest on the Brazil damn collapse (all times local):
9:00 p.m.
The governor's office in Minas Gerais state says seven bodies have been recovered after a dam that held back mining waste collapsed in Brazil.
Authorities have said as many as 200 are missing. Rescue and recovery efforts are underway on Friday.
Parts of the city of Brumadinho were evacuated and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste.
Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office for Brazilian mining company Vale SA, where employees were present.
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7:30 p.m.
A dam that held back mining waste collapsed Friday in Brazil, inundating a nearby community in reddish-brown sludge and leaving an estimated 200 people missing, authorities and the mining company said.
Parts of the city of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste.
Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads.
The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office for Brazilian mining company Vale SA, where employees were present.
Vale CEO Fabio Schartzman said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened. About 100 had been accounted for, and rescue efforts were under way to determine what had happened to the others.
"The principal victims were our own workers," Schartzman told a news conference Friday evening. He said a restaurant was buried by the mud at lunchtime.
News from © The Associated Press, 2019