Brazil dam disaster: Police arrest 8 employees of mining company

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Brazilian police arrested eight employees of mining company Vale SA on Friday, accused by state prosecutors of covering up weaknesses at a dam that collapsed and likely killed over 300 people.

14 search warrants were also carried out as part of the investigation of the country's deadliest mining disaster, prosecutors in the mining state of Minas Gerais said.

The arrests and search warrants targeted employees of Vale as well as German auditing firm TÜV SÜD, which had certified the dam as stable.

The arrests deepened a festering crisis for Vale, the world's largest iron ore mining company, whose share prices have tumbled 18 percent since the disaster and subsequent civil and criminal probes.

A member of the rescue team walks past the collapsed tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA in Brumadinho, Brazil, February 13, 2019. /VCG Photo

The tailings dam in the town of Brumadinho collapsed on January 25, killing at least 166 people. Almost 200 more are still missing.

"The eight Vale employees had full knowledge of the situation of instability in the dam and each one of them, as part of their job, also had the power and ability to adopt measures for either stabilizing the structure or evacuating areas at risk," a judge in Minas Gerais wrote in an arrest warrant, issued in response to a petition from the state prosecutor's office.

Vale said in a securities filing it was cooperating with the investigation.

The latest warrants followed the arrest in January of five Vale and TÜV SÜD employees, who were released by a higher court ruling on February 5.

Employees of the mining company Vale SA, accused by state prosecutors of covering up the dam's weaknesses, are escorted by police officers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, February 15, 2019. /VCG Photo

The most senior Vale employees arrested on Friday were Joaquim Toledo, the executive director of geotechnical operations, who led the team tasked with monitoring the dam's stability, and Alexandre Campanha, the executive corporate director of geo-technicals.

No top Vale executives have been arrested.

Prosecutors alleged that Campanha pressured Makoto Namba, a TÜV SÜD engineer who was arrested and later released, "to sign a declaration that the dam was stable, or risk losing the contract."

Fabio Schvartsman, CEO of Vale SA, gestures during a session of Brumadinho's external commission at the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia, Brazil, February 14, 2019. /VCG Photo

Minas Gerais prosecutors also sought the arrests of four TÜV SÜD employees, but the judge denied the request.

Neither Campanha nor Toledo could be reached immediately for comment.

The company's chief executive officer Fabio Schvartsman said on Thursday, in response to questions from lawmakers, that the company's safety procedures had not worked.

Source(s): Reuters