Residents of the Usina do Carioca region, in the center-west of Minas Gerais, were surprised this Sunday night (9) by an alert to leave their homes.
The municipality of Pará de Minas released a statement via social networks indicating a high risk of the dam at the plant breaking.
According to the spokesman for the Minas Gerais Fire Department, Pedro Aihara, the situation is being monitored at all times, with teams carrying out the removal of people from the region.
In an interview with CNN on Monday (10), he explained that this dam holds water for the operation of a hydroelectric plant.
“Due to the heavy rains that happened in the region of Pará de Minas yesterday, there was an increase in the flow of water in that region. As the increase was very expressive, we have water pouring both over and along the sides of the dam”, he informed.
The lieutenant commented that the dam’s floodgates have already been opened. However, the flow of water is so intense that, even so, it was necessary to alert the preventive and emergency evacuation of communities living in the region.
The lieutenant also predicts that the central region of Minas Gerais will have enough rainfall until Tuesday (11). “The remnants of beatings [podem ir] until Friday, so our troops are reinforced”, he said.
Capitol Searches
This Monday morning (10), the Minas Gerais Fire Department resumed its search operations in the Capitólio canyon, where 10 people died after a rock collapsed. Eight victims have already been identified.
The firefighters spokesman said that, in principle, there is no other person missing. He explains that those killed in the accident were in the same boat, and the passenger list indicated that only 10 people were on board.
However, the firefighters are still there because, due to the violence of the impact of the rock against the victims, not all the bodies were recovered in an integral way.
“We are still carrying out searches on the spot to recover these smaller corporeal segments, as well as the wreckage and other signs of vessels that may support investigations into the investigation that will be carried out to investigate the circumstances of this accident,” said Pedro Aihara.
He also explains that there is no forecast for the completion of the work of firefighters and divers at the site. “We are going to focus all our work on completing the recovery today, and then we will be able to carry out this assessment [sobre o fim dos trabalhos]”, he declared.
“As we manage to recover all this material, we will opt for the completion of the operation”, he added.
According to the firemen’s spokesman, the highway that connects Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro remains blocked only in the direction towards Rio de Janeiro.
He explained that the overflow of the dike occurred because a pile of waste rock from the mining company gave way after heavy rains that hit the region.
“The sterile pile ended up falling into the water containment area, and caused a wave movement that made the watercourse jump over that dike,” he said.
“We still have very heavy rains in the region, but we have already managed to stabilize the situation. What is important is that the structure of this dike is integrated. It does not present any type of structural failure”, he concluded.
Reference: CNN Brasil
