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. </s> Image copyright Reuters

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> 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> 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> 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> 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> 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> 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> 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 </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.
Police arrest five men, three from the mining company Vale and two engineers from a subsidiary company, in connection with the mine collapse.