The cascade swallowed structures and roads, as well as a bus full of people...
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| The onrush of muddy water after the dam broke destroyed structures and swallowed roads and vehicles. Image by Jeso Carneiro via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). |
- The collapse of a dam in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil
on Jan. 25 left at least 58 people dead and hundreds missing.
- The dam held the waste by-product of iron ore mining from a
nearby mine run by a company called Vale.
- Vale was involved in another dam collapse in 2015 — called
Brazil’s worst environmental disaster — that resulted in criminal charges for
several of the company’s leaders and nearly $100 million in fines.
- Critics of mining practices say that the recent failure of
the dam shows that authorities should step up the enforcement of regulations in
Brazil.
The collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil has killed at
least 58 people and left hundreds more missing as they were buried by a wave of
toxic mud.
The dam, which held the waste by-products, or tailings, from
the extraction of iron ore at the Córrego do Feijão mine, was set to be
decommissioned soon, according to news reports.
But when it failed on the
afternoon of Jan. 25, the resulting rush of muddy sludge caught workers off
guard, many of whom are still reportedly missing. The cascade swallowed
structures and roads, as well as a bus full of people, according to Al Jazeera,
before skirting the town of Brumadinho and surging into the Paropeba River
where there are early reports of severe environmental damage.
It’s the second such disaster for Vale, the company that
runs the Córrego do Feijão mine, in a little over three years. In November
2015, 19 people were killed when another tailings dam burst near the town of
Mariana, also in the state of Minas Gerais. The resulting contamination of the
Doce River from the release of potentially harmful heavy metals found in iron
ore tailings had been called Brazil’s worst environmental disaster; 19 died.
Now, critics of the company and mining industry practices
say the recent breakdown near Brumadinho demonstrates that the industry has not
corrected course, despite criminal charges brought against Vale’s leaders and
$92.5 million in fines. - Mongabay
