Ten people are dead and up to 300 are missing after a mining dam collapsed in Brazil, officials said.
Seven bodies were recovered on Friday hours after the disaster, which saw a torrent of sludge break through a dam just north east of the town of Brumadinho while nearby mine employees were eating lunch.
Brazilian mining company Vale SA said the flow reached the community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office, where their employees were present.
The state fire department said in a statement that 10 bodies had been found so far. In a separate statement, the department set the number of missing to roughly 300 people, after 46 were found alive.
However, their chances of survival have been described in ominous terms.
"Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of finding survivors are minimal. We're likely to just be recovering bodies," Romeu Zema, governor of Minas Gerais, told local media.
Officials said up to 150 of the people missing worked for Vale’s administrative offices which were closest to the disused dam at the iron-ore mine close to the city of Belo Horizonte.
After this news, Brazilian environmental agency Ibama stated it has fined miner Vale SA 250 million reais, around £50million, for various violations related to the incident.
Parts of the city were evacuated while local firefighters were rescuing people following the tragedy. Helicopters were used in the efforts, which were pictured pulling people covered in mud out of the sludge.
Photos showed rooftops of structures poking above an extensive field of mud, which also cut off roads.
Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said the dam in the state of Minas Gerais had a capacity of two million cubic meters and was being decommissioned. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on January 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed.
President Jair Bolsonaro sent a tweet saying he lamented the incident and was sending the three cabinet ministers to the area.
Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in 2015, resulting in 19 deaths and displacing hundreds from their homes.
It is considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, with 60 million cubic metres of waste flooding rivers and eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
The rivers of mining waste are raising fears of widespread contamination. According to Vale's website, tailings are mostly made up of sand and are non-toxic.
However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster "contained high levels of toxic heavy metals". The 2015 collapse left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish.
Vale is Brazil's largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, Vale stocks fell 10% on the New York Stock Exchange.
