Death toll from Brazil dam break rises
Two more people have been found dead, following a dam break at an iron ore mine in southeastern Brazil.
"In reality there are a lot more, but we can't confirm any more than that. We don't even know that we'll find everybody," said a spokesman for the fire department on Friday as rescue teams worked through debris from Thursday mudslides in a village near the city of Mariana.
He said the local hospital was "saturated" with mudslide victims, and the new arrivals were being deployed for treatment to the nearby city of Ouro Preto.
Television footage from the scene showed the village of Bento Rodrigues devastated after mudslides unleashed waste water when the dam collapsed, leveling trees, tearing roofs off homes and leaving a car precariously perched on top of a wall.
The flood is also said to have reached another village, Paracatú de Baixo, where the inhabitants were being evacuated.
The mayor of Mariana said rescue workers had evacuated hundreds of families to higher ground from the villages.
The Santarem dam in the Germano complex collapsed along with the rupturing of the Fundao dam on Thursday.
The dams were composed principally of sand and inert tailing, a mining waste product of metal filings used to contain water and residue from mining operations.
The head of emergency planning at Samarco, the joint venture company that runs the mine, linked the incident to seismic activity in the area, but the company's press representatives could not confirm the cause of the incident.
Such dams sometimes hold chemicals, adding to fears of potential contamination of the nearby Gualaxo do Norte River.
Samarco officials claimed there were no chemical elements in the dams presenting health risks.
The dams had valid licenses from environmental authorities, who last inspected them in July, according to Samarco.
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