Brassilia, Brazil: The death toll from Brumadinho dam collapse reached 40 on Sunday. The dam had collapsed on Friday afternoon.
An estimated 300 people were still missing and authorities expected the death toll to increase during a search made more challenging by the intermittent rains. The Minas Gerais state fire department also said 23 people have been hospitalised
The dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Vale, Brazil’s largest mining company, in South-east Brazil.
Employees were eating lunch Friday afternoon when the dam gave way, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several structures of the company and surrounding areas.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who flew over the disaster area in a helicopter on Saturday, tweeted that it was hard not to get “emotional” after seeing the scale of the devastation.
He said he had accepted an offer by Israel to send search equipment that could find people buried in the mud.
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