By Jeffrey T. Lewis, Samantha Pearson and Paulo Trevisani 

SÃO PAULO -- About 200 people are missing after a dam belonging to Brazilian iron-ore giant Vale SA burst on Friday and flooded an area around the town of Brumadinho in the state of Minas Gerais with mud, according to firefighters working to rescue victims of the accident.

A few people have been injured, but so far there are no confirmed deaths, according to a spokesman for the military fire service in Minas Gerais state.

Vale said in a statement earlier Friday that it can't confirm any fatalities, adding there could be injuries. An official of the Joao Fernandes Do Carmo municipal hospital in Brumadinho said the facility is prepared and waiting for injured people, who are first being treated on site, to arrive.

A Vale spokeswoman said it has no more information on the situation at the mine, nor could she provide information on the volume of matter that the dam had contained.

A spokesman for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that Mr. Bolsonaro has established a crisis cabinet and asked the ministries of mining, environment, regional development and defense to coordinate with state authorities in their response to the accident. Mr. Bolsonaro will travel to the site Saturday morning, according to the spokesman.

Brazilian news reports showed images of homes flattened by the flood from the dam, along with mud-filled rivers and washed-out roads, and said that victims who have been pulled from the mud are being treated at a hospital in the nearby state capital of Belo Horizonte. Officials at that hospital weren't immediately available to confirm the reports.

Vale said spillage from the dam reached the company's administrative area and part of the community of Vila Ferteco, and that Vale employees might be among any victims.

Vale is half owner of Samarco SA, a mining operation whose tailings dam in the state of Minas Gerais burst in 2015, killing 19 people and polluting hundreds of miles of rivers with iron-ore waste.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com, Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com and Paulo Trevisani at paulo.trevisani@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 25, 2019 14:59 ET (19:59 GMT)