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At a Glance A mining dam collapsed in southeastern Brazil, sending a torrent of debris downstream.

At least 110 people were killed in the collapse.

Authorities are still searching for 238 missing people. The search for 238 people still missing after the Brazilian mining dam disaster continued Thursday as the death toll reached 110.

Even though no one has been found alive since Saturday, the Minas Gerais Fire Department said it's not ready to stop searching for victims, according to the Associated Press.

Brazilian authorities also have arrested five people Tuesday in connection with the dam failure, two who worked for the Vale mining company and three from a German company that inspected the dam, AP said.

The collapse occurred Friday, January 25, at the Corrego de Feijao mine near Brumadinho — about 215 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro — in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, Vale SA , the mining company that operates the dam said.

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/brazildam.gif?v=at&w=485&h=273" srcset="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/brazildam.gif?v=at&w=485&h=273 400w, https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/brazildam.gif?v=ap&w=980&h=551 800w" > Satellite images show an area northeast of Brumadinho, Brazil, before and after a dam collapsed and covered the area in mud. (DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company/AP)

Vale said the area around the dam was equipped with eight sirens, but “the speed in which the event happened made sounding an alarm impossible” when the collapse occurred, the company told the AP.

The torrent of mud filled with iron ore waste from the mines was spreading down the Paraopeba River on Sunday. Environmentalists fear iron oxide in the waste could settle on the river bed and be churned up every time it rains and contaminate the river again, AP reported. Environmentalists say the impact of the dam collapse will be felt up to 160 miles from the mining site.

On Wednesday, three state and federal agencies asked residents refrain from using water directly from the Paraopeba or 100-meters (109 yards) around it. Authorities said the water presents a risk to humans and animals.

When the dam broke, rescuers used helicopters to search for survivors in a huge area buried in mud.

"Most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies," said Romeu Zema, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais. He noted Saturday afternoon that those responsible "would be punished."

“I saw all the mud coming down the hill, snapping the trees as it descended. It was a tremendous noise,” Simone Pedrosa, who saw the collapse from a neighborhood about five miles from the spot of the breach, told the AP.

A search and rescue crew of about 130 men and women from Israel Defense Forces arrived Sunday to assist with search for survivors, according to Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. The team left Thursday to return to Israel.

Vila Ferteco, a community downstream from the collapse appeared to be the hardest hit, but evacuations were also ordered for parts of Brumadinho. The flow of reddish brown waste also hit an administrative office for the mining company.

"I've never seen anything like it," Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho resident's association, told AP. "It was horrible ... the amount of mud that took over."

Lt. Pedro Aihara, a spokesman for state firefighters, said Saturday they found a bus they believed could be filled with bodies but noted that accessing the bus buried in yards of mud was proving difficult.

"We need a special machine to access the structure and recover victims," Aihara said. "The number of dead is going to go up."

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said in a speech posted to Twitter that the government was taking all "possible steps to minimize the suffering of families and victims."

Bolsonaro said he planned to tour the area by helicopter on Saturday.

Reuters reported that the dam held 1 million cubic meters of mining waste byproduct , much less than the 50 million cubic meters that rushed out of a deadly mining dam collapse in Minas Gerais in 2015. That collapse, at a dam also operated by Vale SA , killed 19 people and also polluted waterways with toxic waste, the Wall Street Journal reports.

AP says a report from the United Nations found that waste from the 2015 disaster "contained high levels of toxic heavy metals." The 2015 collapse left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish.

Video from social media showed widespread destruction and people trapped in a mountain of mud-choked debris. Rescue operations by land and air were ongoing. One television station showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste.

In another video cars, train cars and pieces of structures are seen tossed about the river of debris.

The cause of the collapse is unknown at this time, but weather didn't appear to be a factor.

The area of the collapse is below average for rainfall over the last 30 days, receiving just over an inch of rain since Jan. 1, according to senior weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman.