Israel Sends Aid Delegation To Brazil After Hundreds Go Missing In Dam Collapse

Israel announced it was sending an aid delegation to Brazil after a dam burst at an iron mine in the city of Brumadinho on Friday, killing at least 34 people with hundreds more missing.

According to local authorities, nearly 300 people went missing after the rupture of the dam unleashed mud and sludge across the site and into the cafeteria where workers were eating lunch on Friday, according to the BBC. At least one bus carrying an unknown number of workers was swept away. Emergency services have been working around the clock to recover the victims and survivors. The mine is owned by Vale, Brazil’s largest mining company.

On Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and offered Israel’s help in the search and rescue operation. The IDF humanitarian aid delegation is set to leave on Sunday. It will be accompanied by search-and-rescue volunteers from Israeli emergency response organization ZAKA.

Israel routinely sends relief and humanitarian missions across the world and is often the first or among the first to respond to crises and natural disasters. In June 2018, Israel sent emergency aid to Guatemala following the deadly eruption of a volcano. In January 2018, an Israeli medical team set off for the Eastern African nation of Zambia where a deadly cholera outbreak was wreaking havoc. The Israeli team was the first to respond to the medical crisis.

Israeli teams were on the ground in recent years leading relief missions in a number of disaster-struck areas including Mexico in September 2017, following a massive earthquake that left over 300 people dead, Puerto Rico during the same period following a hurricane, Nepal in 2015 after a devastating quake killed over 9,000 people, the Philippines following a typhoon in 2013 that killed over 6,000, and Haiti in 2010 following a catastrophic earthquake that killed over 100,000 and as many as 300,000, according to some estimates.