Brazil's mining firm Vale SA triggers alarms below three tailings dams

Brazilian mining firm Vale SA activated alarms in areas below three tailings dams on Wednesday night due to an elevated risk of rupture, amid a tense atmosphere in Minas Gerais state where a dam burst in January killed about 300 people. The company activated alarms in areas downstream of the B3/B4 dam and the Forquilha I and Forquilha III dams as a "preventative measure," after the structures failed to receive safety certification from independent auditors.

There will be no new evacuations from the area, Vale said, as residents had vacated the relevant danger zones in February. In late January, a tailings dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine in Minas Gerais ruptured, unleashing a torrent of sludge that killed hundreds. It was the second deadly rupture of a Vale-linked dam in Minas Gerais in just over three years.

Since then, the firm has pledged to decommission dams built in a similar fashion to the ones that burst, and several executives, including the chief executive, have stepped down.