Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more.</s>SÃO PAULO—Brazilian police arrested eight employees of mining giant Vale SA on suspicion of murder after a judge found evidence suggesting they had known for months about significant safety problems at one of its dams before it burst last month, killing more than 160 people.

The dam’s auditors considered falsifying results of a safety inspection out of fear that Vale would cancel or alter another contract between the two companies if they failed to declare the dam safe, according to prosecutors cited by the judge in the arrest...</s>Eight employees of Brazilian mining giant Vale were arrested Friday as part of an investigation into a mine tailings dam collapse last month that killed more than 160 people and left around 150 others missing and presumed dead, judicial officials said.

The arrests occurred in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais at the petition of Minas Gerais's Attorney General's Office, which said the operation is aimed at establishing "criminal responsibility for the dam rupture."</s>SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police arrested eight employees of mining firm Vale SA on Friday, accused by state prosecutors of covering up weaknesses at a dam that collapsed and likely killed more than 300 people.

Police also executed 14 search warrants as part of the probe 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 price has tumbled 18 percent since the disaster and subsequent civil and criminal probes.

The dam in the town of Brumadinho, which contained tailings, the mud-like byproducts of mining, burst on Jan. 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 last month of five Vale and TÜV SÜD employees, who were released by a higher court ruling on Feb. 5.

The most senior Vale employees arrested on Friday were Joaquim Toledo, Vale executive director of geotechnical operations, who led the team given the task of monitoring the dam’s stability, and Alexandre Campanha, Vale executive corporate director of geotechnicals.

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.”

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

The prosecutors alleged “the four employees of TÜV SÜD participated in a scheme, sponsored by Vale, to make up technical numbers, and falsely pledge the stability of the dam, which allowed for the situation of risk to be perpetuated.”

Neither Campanha nor Toledo could be reached immediately for comment. TÜV SÜD declined to comment.

Chief Executive Officer Fabio Schvartsman said on Thursday, in response to questions from lawmakers, that the company’s safety procedures had not worked.

Reuters reported earlier this week that Vale had seen an internal report last year that the dam had a heightened risk of rupturing. Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said on Tuesday that Vale senior management were never shown the documents.</s>SAO PAULO — Eight employees of Brazilian mining giant Vale have been arrested in connection with the investigation into last month’s collapse of a mining dam that killed at least 166 people and left 147 missing in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

The state’s prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the employees were arrested Friday.

They will be held “under temporary custody” for 30 days to determine whether they have responsibility for the Jan. 25 collapse.

Those arrested include four managers and four members of technical teams in charge of monitoring the stability of the dam located near the city of Brumadinho.

Brazil research institute Fiocruz recently said the contamination of the ecosystem and the Paraopeba River could precipitate the spread of dengue, yellow fever or diarrhea in the area.</s>SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police arrested eight employees of mining company Vale SA as part of a criminal investigation into the causes of a deadly dam disaster, prosecutors said on Friday.

Police were also carrying out 14 search warrants as part of the probe, prosecutors in the mining state of Minas Gerais said.

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

Vale confirmed the arrest warrants and said in a securities filing it was cooperating with the investigation.

The tailings dam in the town of Brumadinho burst on Jan. 25, killing at least 166 people.

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

The Vale employees arrested on Friday were responsible for the security and stability of the Brumadinho dam and will be held in jail for 30 days, prosecutors said.

Among those arrested was Vale’s Alexandre de Paula Campanha, who was involved in certifying the dam, according to TV channel Globonews.

Also arrested was his colleague Hélio Márcio Lopes da Cerqueira, who was allegedly involved in email correspondence about faulty monitoring equipment at the mine, according to newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.

Neither Campanha nor Cerqueira could not be reached immediately for comment.

Chief Executive Officer Fabio Schvartsman said on Thursday, in response to questions from lawmakers, that the company’s safety procedures had not worked.

Tailings are the mud-like byproducts, including finely groundrock particles, left over from mining and extracting mineral resources.</s>SAO PAULO (AP) - Eight employees of Brazilian mining giant Vale have been arrested in connection with the investigation into last month's collapse of a mining dam that killed at least 166 people and left 147 missing in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

The state's prosecutor's office said in a statement that the employees were arrested Friday.

They will be held "under temporary custody" for 30 days to determine whether they have responsibility for the Jan. 25 collapse.

Those arrested include four managers and four members of technical teams in charge of monitoring the stability of the dam located near the city of Brumadinho.

Brazil research institute Fiocruz recently said the contamination of the ecosystem and the Paraopeba River could precipitate the spread of dengue, yellow fever or diarrhea in the area.

FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2019 file photo, a helicopter carrying a body pulled from the mud, days after a Vale dam collapsed, flies over a cemetery with two open graves in Brumadinho, Brazil. Lax regulations, chronic short staffing and a law that muffled the voices of environmentalists on mining licenses made the collapse all but destined to happen, experts and legislators say. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

Fernando Nunes walks on the mud where he has been searching for the body of his brother Peterson, returning this day to see if rescuers had found him, in Brumadinho, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. Two days after this photo was taken, his brother's body was found, recovered and identified by their mother. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Malvina Firmina Nunes and her son Fernando are comforted by friends at their home as they grieve for their missing 35-year-old son and brother, Peterson, after a deadly Vale dam collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. "I called him on the phone, but he didn't answer me," Malvina said. "I want to talk to him, but he doesn't answer. Where is my son?" (AP Photo/Leo Correa</s>Relatives of victims who died after a dam burst in Brazil began laying their loved ones to rest. The dam burst claimed upwards of 84 lives, with 276 still unaccounted for. Rough cut -

Victims of dam burst disaster in Brazil are laid to rest 1:13

Eight employees of Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. have been arrested over January’s deadly dam collapse.

Since the disaster on January 25, the company has also lost a quarter of its market value — nearly $19 billion.

The disaster claimed upwards of 84 lives, with 276 still unaccounted for.

According to prosecutors in the mining state of Minas Gerais, police are also carrying out 14 search warrants as part of the probe.

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

The latest warrants come after five Vale and TUV SUD employees were arrested last month, but were released by a higher court ruling on February 5.

Related: New vision of dam collapse, swallows town of Brumadinho

Vale confirmed the arrest warrants on Friday and said it was co-operating with the investigation.

Among those arrested was Vale’s Alexandre de Paula Campanha, who was involved in certifying the dam.

Also arrested was his colleague Helio Marcio Lopes da Cerqueira, who allegedly had email correspondence about faulty monitoring equipment at the mine.

The Vale employees arrested on Friday were responsible for the security and stability of the Brumadinho dam and will be held in jail for 30 days.

In the weeks since the dam collapse, the focus has been on retrieving bodies from the muddy sludge swallowing the town of Brumadinho.

Relatives of victims who died after the dam burst began laying their loved ones to rest at the end of last month.

While Vale has reportedly pledged a donation of 100,000 reals ($37,350) to each family that lost a loved one, locals are apparently not interested in compensation.

As Brazil comes to terms with what could be the worst industrial accident in the country’s history, pressure for Vale to take responsibility is mounting.

Prior to the incident, the company enjoyed global success as the fourth largest mining company in the world. Vale is also the second most-traded share in Brazil’s stock exchange, making it a key player in the country’s economy.

However, the company’s been called into question before following the breaking of the Samarco dam near the city of Mariana in 2015.

At the time, the dam’s collapse caused the deaths of 19 people and irreparable pollution of the entire Doce River basin.

More than 20 people were charged with crimes, including homicide, but were never brought to trial. Nor was anyone convicted or jailed.

This second Vale tragedy could force a long-overdue debate about the environmental effect of exploiting its natural resources.

Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said on Thursday that the company’s safety procedures had not worked. He also evaded questions about why Vale had not yet paid fines owed for the 2015 incident.

Mr Schvartsman told reporters the company was “a Brazilian jewel” that “cannot be condemned for an accident that happened in one of its dams — even though it was such a big tragedy”.

His statement drew angry responses from Brazilian politicians, who will set up a congressional inquiry into Vale in coming days.</s>Brazilian authorities arrested eight employees of mining giant Vale on Friday over a dam collapse at one of its mines three weeks ago that killed at least 166 people and left 147 missing, presumed dead.

Those apprehended -- two executives, two managers and four members of teams that checked the stability of the collapsed dam -- were being held to determine responsibility in relation to "hundreds of crimes of aggravated homicide," the prosecutor's office in the affected southeast state of Minas Gerais said in a statement.

It said they would be held in custody for 30 days. Police with warrants were also carrying out searches for evidence, including in Vale's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.

Information leading to the arrests and warrants came from statements to police by two engineers from a German firm, TUEV SUED, contracted by Vale to inspect and certify the dam.

The engineers were arrested four days after the dam's collapse along with three Vale employees for questioning, and were released a week later.

Four other TUEV SUED employees in Brazil were being sought by police.

The January 25 dam collapse is Brazil's worst industrial disaster. The reservoir, holding millions of tons of tailings -- mineral-laced mining waste -- broke apart and washed over the Vale iron ore mine near the town of Brumadinho.

Most of those buried under its thick mud were mine workers, though some nearby residents were also engulfed.

Emergency crews continue to pick through the mud to look for bodies, but officials have said it was likely not all remains would be recovered.

Vale, the world's biggest iron ore miner and one of Brazil's biggest companies, lost a quarter of its market value after the disaster.

It insists that it observed all safety regulations regarding the dam. It dismisses reports that potential problems were detected before the disaster, saying they were addressed.

Its CEO, Fabio Schvartsman, said Thursday that Vale should not be punished over the disaster at its mine.

The company, he said, "is a Brazilian crown jewel that cannot be condemned for an accident that occurred in its dam, no matter how big the tragedy," he told a Congressional committee.

The disaster was the second involving Vale in three years in the same region of Brazil, after a 2015 collapse of another tailings dam at a jointly owned mine that caused what is considered the country's worst-ever environmental catastrophe.</s>SÃO PAULO -- Brazilian police arrested eight employees of mining giant Vale SA on suspicion of murder after a judge found evidence suggesting they had known for months about significant safety problems at one of its dams before it burst last month, killing more than 160 people.

The dam's auditors considered falsifying results of a safety inspection out of fear that Vale would cancel or alter another contract between the two companies if they failed to declare the dam safe, according to prosecutors cited by the judge in the arrest warrant. The Vale employees arrested were directly responsible for the mine. Some knew the problems there were so serious that the dam was likely not to pass the safety inspection, according to the judge, citing comments from the auditors' email correspondence as well as testimony from other people questioned in the probe.

The judge also cited instances in which other employees at the mine noticed problems at the dam and even pleaded with their superiors to evacuate the site.

The eight Vale employees were brought in for questioning Friday and haven't been charged with a crime. The arrest warrants are valid for 30 days, according to the police. Lawyers for those arrested didn't respond to requests for comment.

The fresh round of arrests, which is based on evidence prosecutors say show that the officials were aware of problems at the dam long before it burst, and the court documents released in conjunction with them, significantly heighten scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest between Vale and the Brazilian unit of German certification giant TÜV SÜD, which had been hired to provide what was supposed to be an independent audit of the safety of the dam in the town of Brumadinho.

As recently as September, the contracted firm found the dam stable, despite identifying a number of safety issues that outside engineering experts said should have raised red flags, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The Brumadinho dam's collapse last month came only three years after another dam, owned by Vale and BHP Group at their joint Samarco operations, burst about 80 miles away in the town of Mariana, killing 19 people. After that tragedy, in November 2015, Vale's management vowed to take every precaution necessary to make sure none of its other dams would fail, adopting the company slogan "Mariana, never again."

Separately on Friday, Brazil's mining regulator said it was investigating the independence of external auditors and the methods miners use to audit their dams. That probe came in response to an earlier request from the government of Minas Gerais, the Brazilian state where both burst mines are located, after the Journal reported the dam's auditor had other business dealings with Vale, raising a potential conflict of interest.

Studies that TÜV SÜD conducted as part of a previous audit in early 2018 indicated the dam wasn't stable, according to the arrest warrant issued Friday. The warrant describes an internal email exchange among TÜV SÜD engineers on May 13, 2018, in which they discuss how the engineers would brief Vale executives about their findings about the safety of the dam in a meeting scheduled the next day.

In the email exchange, Makoto Namba, a TÜV SÜD employee, said they would make clear to Vale the findings were so far preliminary and that they needed to be verified before the firm could decide whether to sign a certification that the dam had passed a safety inspection. But "as always Vale will put us up against the wall and ask: if it doesn't pass, will you sign it or not?" Mr. Namba wrote, according to a part of the email published in the arrest warrant.

TÜV SÜD certified the stability of the Brumadinho dam in a June document. The firm has declined to address questions related to conflicts of interest, saying it regrets the incident and is helping authorities with their investigation. It had no comment regarding the account in Friday's arrest warrant.

Vale said it considered the arrests unnecessary, because the employees would have voluntarily given testimony and were always available to authorities for clarifications. Mr. Namba, one of two TÜV SÜD employees detained and then released, wasn't immediately available for comment.

According to the same email, prosecutors said, Mr. Namba wrote that a Vale employee had called to ask about the dam audit. He wrote the Vale employee knew about the possibility the dam might fail its inspection, according to part of the email quoted in the arrest warrant.

Prosecutors said emails exchanged between TÜV SÜD engineers after Mr. Namba's first message suggested the possibility of them masking the negative results TÜV SÜD found. One engineer said there was a risk that Vale could use a separate contract the company had with TÜV SÜD to get a pass on the audit.

Prosecutors have called for more arrests of TÜV SÜD employees, but the judge said there wasn't yet sufficient evidence against them.

In Friday's arrest warrant, the judge also cited the testimony of a Vale employee who said his father, Olavo Coelho, worked at the mine for 35 years and became the "go-to guy" among the site's top management. He was killed in the tragedy.

In the middle of last year, according to his son's testimony, three of Mr. Coelho's bosses called for his help because mud was spouting from the side of the dam. His father told them to have the whole mine evacuated because he believed it to be beyond repair. According to his son, his superiors told him they couldn't evacuate the sitedo so because "there are too many people and jobs involved."

He said his father later told him: "Son, since you work near the dam, don't go to the part beneath it, and if you hear a loud noise, run toward the buildings because at any moment that thing is going to burst."

Police have been probing what Vale knew about the dam's safety before the Jan. 25 collapse. Apart from the 166 people confirmed dead, rescue efforts continue for 144 others missing in the disaster.

Four days after the burst, police arrested three other Vale employees as well as two TÜV SÜD employees who had signed the June and September safety reports. The dam passed the latest inspection in September, but inspectors found significant safety issues, including drainage problems and faulty equipment. The five were later released.

A person familiar with TÜV SÜD's thinking said the one-page certificate given in September, called a "declaration of stability condition," is a snapshot of the dam's safety at the time it is written, not a long-term guarantee of its safety.

That certificate should be taken in context with the entire report, this person said. It certified the dam as "grade B," this person said. That is the second- highest-risk category on the scale Brazilian regulators use.

The report made suggestions to address that risk, including to the drainage system, which would have needed to be followed up, the person said. Vale has previously said it had acted on all the suggestions made in the full report.

The certificate doesn't guarantee the safety of a dam against outside factors, either, such as seismic activity or large trucks being driven across it, the person familiar with TÜV SÜD's thinking said.

The tailings-dam burst released a wave of muddy mining waste that swept away nearby offices and a crowded lunchroom owned by Vale. The river of sludge also smashed into part of the town of Brumadinho, crushing residences.

Alistair MacDonald and Luciana Magalhaes contributed to this article.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com and Luciana Magalhaes at Luciana.Magalhaes@wsj.com
Eight Vale employees from Minas Gerais are arrested over alleged involvement in a dam collapse that killed at least 166 people.