Brazilian judicial officials in southeast Minas Gerais state on Sunday froze another 5 billion reals (1.325 billion U.S. dollars) in bank accounts belonging to mining giant Vale in the wake of Friday's tailings dam collapse.
So far, the humanitarian and environmental disaster has claimed 58 lives while more than 300 people remain missing.
It is the second time in just three years that a tailings dam at a Vale-owned mining operation in Brazil has collapsed, flooding communities and fields with toxic waste.
It was the third time officials have put a freeze on Vale accounts since Friday, bringing the total of frozen assets to 11 billion reals (2.915 billion dollars).
Freezing the assets aims to guarantee funds are available to pay for reparations to the victims, most of them mine workers.
According to prosecutors, in addition to material damage, the disaster has caused "evident and notable moral, psychological, emotional, communal, health and cultural damage."
Prosecutors noted that the company's third quarter statement showed it had net earnings of 8.3 billion reals (some 2.2 billion dollars), and the money should be invested in environmental recovery and indemnification, instead of being distributed among shareholders.
The incident at Vale's mine in Brumadinho, near the state capital Belo Horizonte, is estimated to have unleashed at least 13 million cubic meters of toxic mud.
In November 2015, a tailings dam collapsed at a mine in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais, killing 19 people and causing what was considered Brazil's worst environmental disaster. Vale was a co-owner of the mine.
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