Brazil arrests 5 to probe 'criminal responsibility' for dam collapse that killed at least 84

At least 84 people have been found dead in the days after a mining dam collapsed in Brazil, and experts say the tragedy could've been prevented.

Brazilian authorities have now arrested five people who surveyed the dam last summer and concluded it was "stable." Authorities say they're "investigating criminal responsibility for the rupture," and could charge the five detainees with "homicide, false representation, and environmental crimes," reports The New York Times.

The dam collapsed Friday as workers were eating lunch, drowning the mining site and a nearby town in a sea of mud. Searches are still ongoing for 276 who are still missing, the Times says.

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The dam belongs to Vale, Brazil's largest mining company. Three of those arrested Tuesday are Vale employees, and prosecutors say they were "directly employed and responsible" for the collapse, per The Guardian. The other two arrested are "subcontracted engineers who recently attested to the stability of the dam," prosecutors said.

Vale also partially owned a mine that saw a similar dam collapse in 2015, killing 15 people and leaking toxic heavy metals into the area, a United Nations report later found. That collapse "is considered to be Brazil's worst environmental disaster," BBC writes. Vale's CEO said Friday that this collapse would probably have a lesser environmental impact.

About 4,000 dams in Brazil have "high damage potential" and 205 of them contain mineral waste, Brazil's regional development minister said Tuesday, per The Guardian. Vale has since said it will "dismantle 10 dams that are similar to the one that collapsed," a process that could take up to three years, The Wall Street Journal writes.