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Police in Brazil have arrested five people as part of an investigation into Friday's dam collapse in Brumadinho.

At least 65 people died when sludge engulfed a company canteen and neighbouring residential buildings.

Prosecutors in Brazil say three of those arrested were officials from the mining company Vale, whose responsibilities included dealing with environmental impact licences.

Vale said it was co-operating with prosecutors.

The company is the world's biggest producer of iron ore and nickel.

Two engineers working for a subsidiary company were arrested in Sao Paulo.

All five can be detained for 30 days and will be questioned by investigators in Belo Horizonte.

Rescuers are continuing to search for survivors in Brumadinho. Nearly 300 people are still missing and there is little hope they will be found alive.

On Monday, protesters gathered outside Vale's corporate headquarters in Rio de Janeiro and daubed slogans including "Murderers!" on its walls.

In a statement following the arrests, Vale said: "With regards to the warrants served this morning, Vale informs that it is fully co-operating with the authorities.

"Vale will continue to support the investigations in order to determine the facts, in addition to the unconditional support to the families."

Vale's share price plunged by nearly 25% on Monday on the Brazilian stock market.</s>Brazilian prosecutors say three employees of miner Vale (NYSE:VALE) and two other engineers working on behalf of the company have been arrested in connection with Friday's deadly dam collapse.

Among those arrested were two of Vale’s senior managers at the Corrego do Feijao mine, site of the deadly incident, and two engineers hired by Vale that affirmed the safety of the dam; the job of the third Vale employee is not yet clear.

The dam collapse has caused 65 confirmed deaths so far, according to local authorities, with another 279 people lost and likely dead.

Vale CFO Luciano Siani says the company will donate 100K reais ($26,600) to each family that had lost a loved one, adding the company would continue paying mining royalties to the devastated town of Brumadinho despite a halt in operations there.</s>Brazilian authorities Tuesday stepped up their probe into mining giant Vale in a dam disaster late last week that killed at least 65 people and left 288 others missing and presumed dead.

Five engineers involved in the operating licenses and the last inspection of the dam were arrested on orders of prosecutors in the state of Minas Gerais, where the tragedy occurred last Friday at one of Vale's mines.

Meanwhile, shares in the company -- the world's biggest iron ore miner -- ticked up around two percent in Sao Paulo Tuesday, still far from recovering from a 24-percent wipeout suffered on Monday.

The dam collapse at its mine near the town of Brumadinho occurred three years after a similar disaster at another of its mines in the same region.

That 2015 dam rupture, near Mariana, killed 19 people and caused what was considered the worst environmental catastrophe Brazil had seen.

Credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Vale's score, and Moody's said it had the company under review for a downgrade. Three US law firms were also making moves towards starting a class-action lawsuit against the miner.

Brazilian media speculated the Vale's board and top executives might be replaced. The overwhelming majority of the dead and missing were workers at the mine.

Authorities have ordered $3 billion in Vale assets be frozen to pay for fines, compensation and employee salaries to families.

The search for bodies was ongoing Tuesday, with a team of Israeli soldiers joining the Brazilian crews who for days have been laboriously probing the expanse of mud released by the dam.

The barrier, which was in the process of being decommissioned, held around 13 million tons of tailings, a sludgy mining byproduct.

Men are digging, often by hand, to depths of up to 15 meters (50 feet) to recover corpses encased in mud. The remains are then bagged and airlifted away by helicopter. The fetid odor of decomposing bodies rose from the brown surface.

With a dozen kilometers (eight miles) of mud to carefully scour, the operation has proceeded slowly, barely denting the long list of the missing.

Jose Ferreira da Silva, a 55-year-old laborer, was blocked by police as he attempted to enter the zone to look for his 27-year-old son Josue, who worked for a Vale contractor.

"We just want to try to do something," he said, tearfully.

No survivors have been found since Saturday, only bodies.

Corrego do Feijao, the closest village to the mine, has been in mourning since the disaster. Most of its inhabitants work for Vale, and 20 of their number were missing.

"I'm living a horror film. These are people I grew up with. I don't know how I'm going to get through this," said Cleyton Candido, who was waiting on news of his missing nephew and several friends.

Like many of them, he was hired by Vale as a teen. He worked for nine years in a workshop close to the mine's administrative area and cafeteria, which were the first to be swept away by the deluge of mud.

The toxicity of the mineral-laced sludge was not yet known. But an indigenous community downstream complained that fish it relies on for its livelihood were dying.

The tragedy has turned public opinion against Vale. Late Monday, dozens of people staged a protest with mud in front of the company's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Newspaper editorials blast it -- and the government -- for not learning the lessons of the 2015 Mariana disaster.

Minas Gerais prosecutors said they have launched a probe "evaluating the criminal responsibility of the Vale company."

The five engineers arrested were part of that investigation. They were to be held for up to 30 days for questioning.

Three of the engineers work for Vale and were directly involved in the process of the facility's operating licenses, the prosecutors said.

The other two worked for TUEV SUED, a German company that in September carried out the last safety inspection of the collapsed mine.

TUEV SUED confirmed the arrest of its employees but said that "due to the inquiries under way, we are not currently in a position to provide more information."

Vale said in its own statement that it was "cooperating fully with authorities" and was making efforts to give "unconditional" support to the families of the dead and missing from the disaster.</s>The share dive pulled down the whole Bovespa index more than 2.5 percent, making it the worst performance so far this year. Bradesco, one of Brazil's biggest banks which holds a 5.8-percent stake in the miner, was pummeled. US-listed shares in Vale also declined strongly as trading began in New York.

Vale, the world's biggest iron-ore miner, has seen its reputation severely tarnished by the deadly accident -- the second involving a company-owned mine in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in just over three years.

Before trading, it announced it was suspending dividend payments to shareholders and performance-related executive bonuses.

Brazilian authorities separately have frozen a total 11 billion reais -- over €3 billion -- in Vale assets in anticipation of compensation it will likely have to fork out.

A tsunami of mineral-laced mud broke through a dam at an iron-ore mine owned by Vale near the town of Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais, on January 25.

The company is mourning lost personnel in the latest disaster, as the overwhelming majority of those dead and missing were workers at the mine.

Many of the victims were eating lunch at the site when millions of tons of sludge, a byproduct of mining, burst through the dam and engulfed the administrative area they were in.

Emergency workers also found a company minivan buried in the mud with bodies inside.

The dam that broke was built in 1976 and was in the process of being decommissioned. Vale said it had passed a structural safety inspection four months ago, which was confirmed by Tuev Sued, the German firm that carried it out.

Vale, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, has a deep purse from which to pay fines, compensation and lawsuits resulting from the latest disaster.

In 2017, based on the last full-year results available, the company made more than €4 billion in profits, on revenue of over €29 billion.

That net result was 38 percent higher than the previous year, evidence of a bounce back after a sharp commodities slump in 2015 that forced the company into cost-cutting.

Before Monday's plunge, Vale was worth more than €61 billion according to its market capitalization.

It is one of the top miners in the world, behind BHP and Rio Tinto, both Anglo-Australian groups.

Apart from iron-ore, which feeds China's appetite, Vale also mines nickel, copper and other metals.

The company has a workforce of 76,500 in 30 countries and also operates hydroelectric plants, rail lines, ports and ships to get its products to market.

Vale started out in Minas Gerais in 1942 as a state-owned company called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. It was privatized in 1997</s>Brazilian authorities have arrested five people in connection with a dam collapse that killed at least 65 people as it plastered part of a city with reddish-brown mud and mining waste.

The arrests came as rescue crews worked for the fifth day and searched for survivors or bodies of the hundreds missing.

Three employees of Brazilian miner Vale SA and two other engineers working on behalf of the company have been arrested, deepening a crisis for the company after another deadly disaster at one of its mines.

Vale said it was cooperating with the investigators probing the mining catastrophe, which is likely to leave a death toll of more than 300 people.

Two of Vale's senior managers at the Corrego do Feijao mine — where a tailings dam burst last Friday, drowning the nearby town of Brumadinho in mining waste — were among those arrested, according to Minas Gerais state judge Perla Saliba Brito.

The job of the third Vale employee was not immediately clear.

Two other engineers, who worked on behalf of Vale and are accused of attesting to the safety of the dam, were arrested in Sao Paulo, state prosecutors said.

State investigators issued a total of five arrest warrants and seven search warrants, on suspicion of murder, falsification of documents and environmental crimes, the judge's decision showed.

Offers of recompense from Vale have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Chief financial officer Luciano Siani said Vale was doing all it could, offering money to mourners, extra tax payments to local government, a special membrane to remove mud from the river and major investments to make its dams safer.

Yet residents in the devastated town of Brumadinho have been unmoved, watching in shock and anger as one dead body after another has been pulled from the mud.

The collapse of the dam in the hilly, pastoral region has caused 65 confirmed deaths so far, according to firefighters' count on Monday night, with another 279 people lost and likely dead.

This latest disaster's proximity to the Samarco breach has made Vale unforgivable in the eyes of many Brazilians.

"There's anger, sadness, everything," he said, holding back tears as he surveyed the destruction in Corrego do Feijao, a small hamlet within Brumadinho that gave its name to the mine at the centre of the disaster.

Mr Siani said the company would donate 100,000 reais ($37,350) to each family that had lost a loved one, adding the company would continue paying mining royalties to Brumadinho despite a halt in operations there.

The company was building a membrane to stop the flow of mud now snaking down the Paraopeba River.

A "bold" investment plan would also speed up the process of making dams more secure, he said.

Vale and Brasilia agree that regulations are broken

Prosecutors and politicians have not been impressed.

Brazil's top prosecutor said the company should be criminally prosecuted and executives held personally responsible.

Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque said the regulatory model for the mining industry was broken.

In a TV interview on Sunday, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman seemed to agree.</s>Three employees of Brazilian mining company Vale SA and two contractors were arrested on Tuesday, prosecutors said, as a criminal investigation began into a dam rupture that's expected to leave a death toll of more than 300 people.

Vale said it was co-operating with investigators in the case, which has enraged Brazilians and raised fresh questions about the company's commitment to safety after a similar dam burst just over three years ago at a nearby mine it jointly owned.

Two of those arrested were Vale's senior managers at the Corrego do Feijao mine, where a tailings dam broke on Friday, hammering the nearby town of Brumadinho with a flood of mining waste — according to a court order seen by Reuters. The job of the third Vale employee was not immediately clear.

Two other engineers, who worked on behalf of Vale and are accused of attesting to the safety of the dam, were arrested in Sao Paulo, state prosecutors there said.

Minas Gerais state investigators issued a total of five arrest warrants and seven search warrants on suspicion of murder, falsification of documents and environmental crimes, a judge's decision showed.

The collapse of the dam in the hilly, pastoral region has caused 65 confirmed deaths so far, according to firefighters' count on Monday night, with another 279 people missing and likely dead.

Chief financial officer Luciano Siani said Vale was doing all it could, offering money to mourners, extra tax payments to local government, a special membrane to remove mud from the river and major investments to make its dams safer.

Yet residents in the devastated town of Brumadinho have been unmoved, watching in shock and anger as one dead body after another has been pulled from the mud.

Following a deadly 2015 tailings dam collapse just a few towns over at a mine half-owned by Vale, the disaster remained unforgivable in the eyes of many Brazilians.

"Vale is destroying Minas Gerais," said Robinson Passos, 52, who lost a cousin and friends in Brumadinho.

"There's anger, sadness, everything," he said, holding back tears as he surveyed the destruction in Corrego do Feijao, a hamlet within Brumadinho that gave its name to the mine at the center of the disaster.

At the headquarters for the local mining union, which lost more than one in 10 members by organizers' count, treasurer Jose Francisco Mateiro, blamed the company and authorities for putting him and his comrades at risk.

"They call it an accident but the design of those dams was premeditated," he said. "There have been warnings about all mining dams for a long time now."

Vale chief executive officer Fabio Schvartsman said the facility was up to code and equipment had shown the dam was stable just two weeks before the collapse.

"We are 100 per cent within all the standards, and that didn't do it," he said in a Sunday TV interview.

Siani said the company would donate 100,000 reals ($35,517) to each family that had lost a loved one, adding the company would continue paying mining royalties to Brumadinho despite a halt in operations there.

The company was building a membrane to stop the flow of mud now snaking down the Paraopeba River. A "bold" investment plan also would speed the process of making dams more secure, he said.

Prosecutors and politicians have not been impressed.

On Monday, a presidential task force contemplated forcing out Vale's management. Government ministers have said Brazil's mining regulations are broken. The country's top prosecutor said the company should be criminally prosecuted and executives held personally responsible.</s>Vale, the Brazilian company that owns the dam that burst at one of its mines killing dozens and leaving hundreds missing, is the world’s biggest iron-ore miner – and its reputation has taken a harsh blow with the disaster.

Brazilian authorities have frozen 11 billion reais — around $3 billion — in Vale assets in anticipation of compensation it will likely have to fork out.

The accident is the second involving Vale in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais within three years.

A tsunami of toxic mud broke through a dam at an iron-ore mine owned by Vale near the town of Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais, on January 25. The official toll from the disaster was 58 dead and 305 missing as of late Sunday.

In 2015 a dam at another mine jointly owned by the company ruptured, killing 19 and causing what was considered the worst environmental disaster Brazil had seen.

Vale and its partner BHP are still paying for that accident, with compensation and fines costing over $6 billion and lawsuits ongoing.

Vale’s shares lost eight percent in New York trading following news of the dam rupture.

The Sao Paulo stock market was closed Friday for a holiday, and trading in Vale shares there was expected to be intense Monday when it reopens.

The company is also mourning their personnel losses, as the overwhelming majority of the dead and missing were Vale employees.

Many of the victims had been eating lunch at the site when millions of tons of trailings — muddy sludge that is a byproduct of mining — burst through the dam and engulfed the administrative area they were in.

Emergency workers also found an company bus buried in the mud with bodies inside.

The dam that broke was built in 1976 and was in the process of being decommissioned. Vale said it had passed a structural safety inspection four months ago, which was confirmed by the German firm, Tuev Sued, that carried that out.

Vale, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, has a deep purse from which to pay fines, compensation and lawsuits resulting from the latest disaster.

In 2017, based on the last full-year results available, the company made $5.5 billion in profits, on revenue of $34 billion.

That net result was a 38 percent jump over the previous year, evidence of a bounceback after a sharp commodities slump in 2015 that forced the company into cost-cutting.

A mining specialist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Jardim Wanderley, told AFP that there was “a tendency for companies, in that period of commodity prices falling, to cut safety and maintenance budgets.”

He said that, of the 450 dams in Minas Gerais state, “we have a relatively high number of dams that are doubtful or in inappropriate conditions.”

Vale is worth an overall $78.7 billion dollars, according to its market capitalization. That makes it the third-biggest miner in the world, behind BHP and Rio Tinto, both Anglo-Australian groups.

The company, has a workforce of 76,500 worldwide and also operates hydroelectric plants, rail lines, ports and ships to get its products to market.

Vale started out in Minas Gerais — a rich state for mining, as its name declares in Portuguese — in 1942 as a state-owned company called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. It was privatized in 1997.

On its corporate website Vale boasts that it has a “passion for people and the planet.”

The list of values the company says it aspires to include “life matters most” and “do what is right.”</s>In a statement on Twitter, Vale said it was cooperating with investigators, who are probing a mining catastrophe that is likely to leave a death toll of more than 300 people. The tragedy has enraged many in Brazil, and raised fresh questions about Vale's commitment to safety after a similar dam collapse at a mine it joint-owned just over three years ago.

Two of Vale's senior managers at the Corrego do Feijao mine - where a tailings dam burst last Friday, drowning the nearby town of Brumadinho in mining waste - were among those arrested, according to the local judge's decision, seen by Reuters. The job of the third Vale employee was not immediately clear.

Two other engineers, who worked on behalf of Vale and are accused of attesting to the safety of the dam, were arrested in Sao Paulo, state prosecutors there said.

Minas Gerais state investigators issued a total of five arrest warrants and seven search warrants, on suspicion of murder, falsification of documents and environmental crimes, the judge's decision showed.

Offers of recompense from Vale SA for one of the deadliest mining disasters in decades have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said Vale was doing all it could, offering money to mourners, extra tax payments to local government, a special membrane to remove mud from the river and major investments to make its dams safer.

Yet residents in the devastated town of Brumadinho have been unmoved, watching in shock and anger as one dead body after another has been pulled from the mud.

The collapse of the dam in the hilly, pastoral region has caused 65 confirmed deaths so far, according to firefighters' count on Monday night, with another 279 people lost and likely dead.

Coming on the heels of a deadly 2015 tailings dam collapse just a few towns over, at a mine half-owned by Vale, the disaster remained unforgivable in the eyes of many Brazilians.

"Vale is destroying Minas Gerais," said Robinson Passos, 52, who lost a cousin and friends in Brumadinho.

"There's anger, sadness, everything," he said, holding back tears as he surveyed the destruction in Corrego do Feijao, a small hamlet within Brumadinho that gave its name to the mine at the center of the disaster.

Vale CFO Siani said the company would donate 100,000 reais (20,228 pounds) to each family that had lost a loved one, adding the company would continue paying mining royalties to Brumadinho despite a halt in operations there.

The company was building a membrane to stop the flow of mud now snaking down the Paraopeba River. A "bold" investment plan would also speed up the process of making dams more secure, he said.

Prosecutors and politicians have not been impressed.

On Monday, a presidential task force contemplated forcing out Vale's management. Brazil's top prosecutor said the company should be criminally prosecuted and executives held personally responsible.

Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque said the regulatory model for the mining industry was broken.

In a TV interview on Sunday, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman seemed to agree. "We are 100 percent within all the standards, and that didn't do it," he said.</s>SÃO PAULO -- Brazilian police arrested five people Tuesday in connection with the deadly collapse of a dam owned by iron-ore producer Vale SA, including employees of the mining company.

The number killed by the tide of mud and mining debris that swept through the burst dam Friday had risen to 65 by Monday evening, while close to 300 people are still missing and feared dead.

Police said two engineers working for a company hired by Vale to inspect the dam before its collapse were arrested in São Paulo. Three Vale employees were detained in or near the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state, where the dam was located.

Police also seized documents and other items belonging to the five detainees. Vale said in a note that the company is cooperating fully with investigators.

The dam collapse destroyed nearby offices and a bar belonging to Vale and debris smashed into parts of the small town of Brumadinho in Minas Gerais.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com and Paulo Trevisani at paulo.trevisani@wsj.com</s>Three employees of the Brazilian mining company Vale SA and two other engineers working on behalf of the company have been arrested, Minas Gerais and São Paulo state prosecutors have said.

In a statement on Twitter, Vale said it was cooperating with investigators, who are looking into a mining disaster that could leave a death toll of more than 300 people.

The tragedy has enraged many in Brazil, and raised fresh questions about Vale’s commitment to safety after a similar disaster at a mine it joint-owned just over three years ago.

Two of Vale’s senior managers at the Córrego do Feijão mine – where a tailings dam burst last Friday, drowning the nearby town of Brumadinho in mining waste – were among those arrested, according to the local judge’s decision, seen by Reuters. The job of the third Vale employee was not immediately clear.

Two other engineers were arrested in São Paulo, state prosecutors there said.

Minas Gerais investigators issued a total of five arrest warrants and seven search warrants, on suspicion of murder, falsification of documents and environmental crimes, the judge’s decision showed.
Police arrest five men, three from the mining company Vale and two engineers from a subsidiary company, in connection with the mine collapse.