BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO– Brazilian rescuers were searching for some 200 missing people after a tailings dam burst yesterday at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA, the second major dam disaster involving the company in just over three years. Seven bodies had been recovered by nightfall, said Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of the town of Brumadinho where the dam burst in the mining-heavy state of Minas Gerais.

The toll was expected to rise sharply. Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said only one-third of the roughly 300 workers at the site had been accounted for. He said a torrent of sludge tore through the mine’s offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime. Minas Gerais is still recovering from the collapse in November 2015 of a larger dam that killed 19 people in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster. That dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton , buried a village and poured toxic waste into a major river.(reuters)…[+]