Hopes fade for 300 missing in Brazil dam collapse

BRUMADINHO, Brazil, Jan 26 (AFP): Hopes were fading Saturday that rescuers would find more survivors from at least 300 missing after a dam collapse at a mine in southeast Brazil, with nine bodies so far recovered.
Seven bodies were recovered Friday hours after the disaster, after a torrent of mud broke through the dam at the iron-ore mine close to the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerias, around 1:00 pm.
By early Saturday the official death toll had risen to nine, local firefighters said,
who also doubled the number of people presumed missing from the previous toll to nearly 300 people.
Romeu Zema, the governor of Minas Gerais, told reporters that while all was being done to find survivors, "from now, the odds are minimal and it is most likely we will recover only bodies".
Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro, who rushed home from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is scheduled to fly over the disaster zone Saturday along with his defence minister.
The mine is owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale. It was involved in a 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country's worst-ever environmental disaster.