Brumadinho investigation could lead to murder charge for Vale executives

Six months since a tailings dam collapsed in the Minas Gerais town of Brumadinho, spilling billions of liters of mud into the surrounding area and killing 246 people and leaving 24 missing, authorities are beginning to get closer to holding those responsible to account.

In the Senate, a parliamentary investigation committee (CPI) was set up to examine the incident and whether the dam’s owners—Brazilian mining giant Vale—were liable in the failure. Months of hearings later, and senators have requested that former Vale president Fabio Schvartsman be indicted for “depraved-indifference murder,” along with 13 other people.

Among the other parties held liable by senators are 11 employees of German company Tüv Süd, which was responsible for attesting to the safety of the Córrego do Feijão dam, which had a catastrophic failure on January 25. The CPI’s recommendations will be...