© Getty ImagesFlooding from a burst dam in Mariana, Brazil
The authorities said Thursday night that they were trying to determine the number of casualties, with Brazilian news organizations reporting that at least one person had died. Union officials representing workers at the mine said they feared that as many as 15 people might have died after the dam burst.
The episode in a district of Mariana, a city of 58,000 residents in Minas Gerais State, stunned a country that relies heavily on dams to produce electricity and on mining to generate export revenue. The dam operated by Samarco, a venture between BHP Billiton, the Australian commodities giant, and Vale, the Brazilian mining company, held residue from an open-pit iron ore mining operation.
"We need rigor in determining what happened," Carlos Eduardo Ferreira Pinto, a prosecutor in Minas Gerais, told reporters on Thursday. "No dam bursts by chance."
Hydropower complexes provide about three-quarters of the country's electricity and much of the energy used to run some remote mining sites.
Images that were broadcast on national television showed homes nearly covered in mud, with vehicles strewn on the roofs of properties in Bento Rodrigues, as if a hurricane had swept through the community of about 600 people.
In addition to the damage and the fears that the number of casualties may climb as rescue squads explore the site, the authorities expressed concern that sludge from the burst dam could contaminate the river basin providing water to Belo Horizonte, a city of 2.5 million people in Minas Gerais.
But Luiz Paniago Neves, an official overseeing inspections at the National Department of Minerals Production, said the waste was not considered to pose a high risk for pollution.
He told reporters that it consisted largely of rocks with tiny amounts of naturally occurring iron ore, rather than chemical waste.
Samarco, the mining company that operates the dam, said it was seeking to assist victims and mitigate any environmental damage.
"It is not possible at this time to confirm the causes or the extent of what has occurred," the company said in a statement.
Brazil has grappled with dams bursting in the past. Flooding from a broken dam in Piauí, a state in northeastern Brazil, killed at least 24 people in 2009.
And in 2012, water broke through a dam in Rio de Janeiro State, forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes.
Environmental activists contend that Brazil's government needs to do more to protect people who live near dams.
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