Bento Rodrigues dam breach

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Coordinates: 20 ° 13 ′ 53.5 ″  S , 43 ° 26 ′ 33.5 ″  W.

Map: Brazil
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Bento Rodrigues dam breach​
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Brazil
Comparative animated satellite images, the region before and after the dam breach.
The village of Bento Rodrigues after the dam burst.

The breach of the Bento Rodrigues dam , also referred to as the Mariana tragedy in media reports , occurred on November 5, 2015 in a district of the city of Mariana in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil when the dams of a sedimentation basin collapsed. 19 people are believed to have died: 18 bodies were found, one person is still missing. At least 32 million cubic meters of mud then flowed over several rivers towards the Atlantic.

course

When two dams in a retention basin of an iron ore mine broke, a mudslide poured into the valley below. The avalanche broke through the Santarem dam below and buried the mountain village of Bento Rodrigues under itself within a few minutes. Bento Rodrigues was a place with 600 inhabitants, about 250 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro .

The rivers Rio Gualaxo do Norte and Rio do Carmo , which belong to the catchment area of ​​the Rio Doce , flow through the affected area . The mud pushed into the river, which was subsequently contaminated over a length of 666 kilometers. On November 22nd, the mud reached the mouth of the Rio Doce. The coastal ecosystem has also been contaminated; three marine reserves - Comboios, Costa das Algas and Santa Cruz - are considered threatened.

backgrounds

Contaminated water flows into the Atlantic

The mine is owned by the Brazilian mining company Samarco Mineração , a joint venture between the Brazilian mining company Vale and the British-Australian raw materials company BHP Billiton , which each hold 50 percent of the shares. Samarco denied all allegations and stated that a slight earthquake had triggered the dam breaks. The company also said the mud was non-toxic and posed no threat to people's health. A UN report contradicts this and points to high levels of toxic heavy metals and other chemicals in the sludge.

Effects

More than 500 people lost their homes to the mudslide and several hundred thousand were cut off from the drinking water supply. According to a survey by the US consultancy firm Bowker Associates, the Mariana disaster represents a triple-negative record in the history of mining:

  1. The amount of leaked sludge: 32 to 62 million cubic meters
  2. The size of the affected area: 680 kilometers of the river
  3. The amount of damage: $ 5 billion to $ 55 billion

Studies of the river water initially provided contradicting results with regard to the pollution with toxins. In some cases, they showed increased levels of arsenic , aluminum , lead , copper and mercury . It was unclear whether these substances came from the sludge of the retention basin. However, later analyzes by the UN assume this.

It should take at least 100 years for the residues of the toxins to slowly disappear.

The open pit was discontinued after the dam burst. Protests by local residents have so far prevented it from being restarted. The disaster resulted in the loss of nearly $ 11 billion in market value of BHP's stock on November 9, 2015.

Compensation payments

Samarco was obliged to make compensation payments of the equivalent of 250 million euros for initial emergency measures.

The Brazilian state sued the companies involved Vale and BHP Billiton on November 30, 2015, initially for the equivalent of 4.9 billion euros to cover cleaning and reconstruction work. In an initial procedure, Samarco agreed in early May 2016 to pay compensation totaling around 24 billion reais (around 6 billion euros at the current exchange rate). The decisions in further proceedings are still pending (as of August 2019).

Brumadinho dam breach and other endangered retention basins

On January 25, 2019, another dam in a sedimentation basin of an iron ore mine in the same state broke: the Brumadinho dam breach . This mine also belonged to Vale.

In April 2020, according to the IndustriAll union, the Brazilian government closed 47 vulnerable retention basins in Brazil, more than half of which belong to Vale. 37 of the retention basins are located in Minas Gerais.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Corpo é achado dentro de caminhão em área do desastre em Mariana. Esta é uma das 2 vítimas que ainda estavam desaparecidas, dizem bombeiros. 17 vítimas já haviam sido suchenradas; to homem continua desaparecido. O Globo , March 9, 2016 (Portuguese), accessed October 22, 2019.
  2. ↑ Frik Els: BHP, Vale hit with $ 44 billion lawsuit over deadly spill. In: mining.com. May 3, 2016, accessed May 4, 2016 .
  3. ↑ High resolution imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures , November 17, 2015
  4. ↑ Anne Herrberg: A lifeline that has become muddy brown . Environmental disaster in Brazil. In: tagesschau. ARD, November 27, 2015, accessed on November 28, 2015 .
  5. ↑ a b c The Rio Doce dies. In: Zeit Online. November 27, 2015, accessed November 7, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Alexander Busch: BHP and Vale in the crisis: fatal dam break shocks Brazil. In: handelsblatt.com. November 6, 2015, accessed November 28, 2015 .
  7. ↑ a b Paul Kiernan: Brazil Dam's Failure Flooded Region With Toxic Waste, UN Report Says . In: Wall Street Journal . November 26, 2015, ISSN  0099-9660 ( wsj.com [accessed November 7, 2016]).
  8. ↑ Christian Russau: Mud of destruction and injustice. In: atavist.com. October 24, 2017. Retrieved May 18, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Susann Kreutzmann, Dagny Lüdemann: Politics, as contaminated as the Rio Doce. In: Zeit Online. December 1, 2015, accessed December 6, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Tiago Palma: ONU Medidas do Governo brasileiro e de mineradoras após rutura de barragem foram "insuficientes". In: Observador. November 25, 2015. Retrieved November 28, 2015 (Portuguese).
  11. ^ Owen Alexander, Oscar Grenfell: Six dead, at least 21 missing in Brazilian mine disaster. In: World Socialist Web Site. November 11, 2015, accessed November 28, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Consequences of a dam breach. Brazil's dead river. In: NZZ. November 18, 2015, accessed November 27, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Brazil files billions against corporations after the dam broke. In: FAZ. December 1, 2015, accessed December 1, 2015 .
  14. ^ BHP, Vale shares surge on Samarco deal. In: mining.com. Retrieved March 3, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Quase quatro anos após rompimento de barragem em Mariana, atingidos ainda sofrem com situação do Rio Doce O Globo , August 26, 2019 (Portuguese), accessed on October 22, 2019.
  16. ↑ Christian Russau: Brazil closes 47 retention basins at risk of breaking. April 17, 2020, accessed July 6, 2020 .