Brazilian judge orders five arrests over dam collapse tragedy
Search efforts are continuing for survivors and for more victims.
Brazilian authorities have issued arrest warrants for five people in connection with a dam collapse that killed at least 65 people and left nearly 300 missing as it plastered part of a small city with reddish-brown mud and iron ore mining waste.
The orders were issued in Sao Paulo and in the state of Minas Gerais, where the collapse happened last Friday.
They came as rescue crews began a fifth day searching for survivors or bodies, and some families began burying their dead.
In a statement, Vale said it was cooperating with authorities in the investigation.
A German company that has inspected the dam said two of its employees had been arrested.
The Munich-based TUEV company Sued declined to specify whether the arrested staff were from its German headquarters or its Brazilian branch.
It is not believable that “dams of such magnitude, run by one of the largest mining companies in the world, would break suddenly without any indication of vulnerability”, the judge wrote in the decision, according to news portal UOL.
The dam was part of an iron ore production complex.
Vale is the world’s largest producer of the ore, which is the raw ingredient for steel.
He said 288 remained missing, most of them Vale employees.
Many employees were eating lunch last Friday when the dam collapsed, burying a cafeteria and other company buildings.
