Mining Weekly reported a dam holding back waste water from an iron ore mine in Brazil burst on Thursday, creating mudslides in a nearby town and causing casualties. The dam is owned by Vale (NYSE:VALE) and BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BLT).

The mining company Samarco, a joint venture between top iron-ore miners Brazil’s Vale and Australia’s BHP, said in a statement it had not yet determined why the dam burst or the extent of the disaster at its Germano mine near the town of Mariana in Minas Gerais, south eastern Brazil.
Civil defense authorities in Mariana said they were evacuating about 600 people to higher ground from the village of Bento Rodrigues, where television footage showed dozens of homes destroyed by the mudslide. A car rested on top of a wall where the roof of a building had been ripped off.
They said the flood had also reached another village further down the hill, called Paracatú de Baixo, and that inhabitants there were being evacuated. The dam was holding tailings, a mining waste product of metal filings, water and occasionally chemicals. It was located near the Gualaxo do Norte river, adding to fears of potential water contamination.

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