Brazil dam collapses causing 'several deaths'

Brasília, Jan 25: A mining dam collapsed in southeastern Brazil on Friday, flooding a nearby community and raising fears of widespread contamination.

Emergency services were still responding to the situation in and around the town of Brumadinho and did not yet have a precise toll, the official said.

Television images taken from the air showed a wide swath of devastation cut through vegetation and farmland in which several homes were seen, many damaged and some destroyed, with nothing but their tiled roofs left sitting on mud.

The accident comes three years after Brazil's worst environmental disaster when a larger dam owned jointly by Vale and BHP Billiton broke in the same region, burying local homes and killing 19 people.

Friday's incident appeared to pale in comparison with the 2015 disaster in Mariana in Minas Gerais, when the tailings dam at the Samarco iron ore mine burst.