Sydney architect Luiz Taliberti Ribeiro da Silva, 33, his five-months-pregnant girlfriend Fernanda Damian de Almeida, 30, remain missing after the collapse of a dam nearby Brumadinho in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
The couple's family have told Brazilian media that they are hopeful of their eventual rescue, or identification among survivors, even amid a shrinking likelihood of their survival.
The couple has lived in Sydney since 2015 and Luiz Ribeiro da Silva is the associate creative director of a Sydney architectural rendering 3D firm, Binyan Studios.
Andrei Dolnikov, founder and CEO of Binyan Studios, told SBS Portuguese that Luiz is a wonderful person and that everyone in the team is shocked.
"Everyone is shocked and praying and waiting on good news. Luiz is one of the very outstanding people in our team. Everyone is sad and shocked. We expressed our full support to the family. Luiz is a wonderful person, everyone here loves him... a lot," said Andrei Dolnikov.
The couple, along with Ribeiro da Silva's sister, Camila Taliberti da Silva, 33, his father Adriano Ribeiro da Silva, 61, and his stepmother Maria de Lurdes Bueno, 59, were staying at a small resort in Brumadinho when the dam, run by Brazilian mining company Vale, exploded inundating part of the town. They all remain missing.
The dam collapse has thus far reportedly killed 60 people, while 279 are still considered missing.
Luiz had proposed the family trip to visit the historic Brazilian city of Inhotim, nearby Brumadinho. His plan was to gather close family together and announce the couple's wedding date.
According to posts from friends on Facebook, Fernanda Damian de Almeida had also gone to Brazil to announce her pregnancy to family in person.
While the entire family was staying at the Pousada Nova Estancia resort, 12km from Brumadinho, their names were the family were initially not included in a list of missing people. They were finally added to the list on Sunday.
Source: Facebook
The family's relatives accused Vale of ignoring the potential victims of the disaster who were not employed by the mining company.
“They only managed to be included in the list after a lot of waiting and bureaucracy,” said Helena Taliberti, the mother of Luiz and Camila.
She also said there was a lack of communication between emergency services and negligence from the company. Taliberti is in Brumadinho, accompanied by her husband, Vagner Diniz, and family members. She desperately hopes to find everyone alive.
"I will accept nothing less than my children returned alive from Vale," she said.
"My husband, my nephew and other friends are going to all hospitals, there are still survivors who have not yet been identified," she elaborated.
According to Beatriz Duarte, Adriano Ribeiro's assistant, the family is keeping hope of finding them alive.
Fernanda, who is five months pregnant, is still missing. Source: Facebook
"The expectation of the family is that they are lost, stranded somewhere," said Duarte, according to Brazilian news media "The family believes that at the time of the accident they were not in the Pousada. Camila sent a message to her boyfriend hours after the tragedy. It is the great hope of all. They are clinging to it."
60 people are confirmed dead so far in the disaster. 31 have been identified by the State Coroners and 279 remain unaccounted for.
About 38 people were staying at the Pousada Nova Estancia at the time of Vale's dam collapse Source: Facebook
The mud inundated the local community and part of the mining company’s properties. Residents, tourists and Vale’s employees are among the victims.
