The Brumadinho dam disaster occurred on 25 January 2019, when a tailings dam at an iron ore mine in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazilsuffered a catastrophic failure. The dam was owned by Vale, the same company which was involved in the 2015 Bento Rodrigues dam disaster. The Barragem I dam released a mudflow that advanced over houses in a rural area near the city.

Contents

Background

The situation of the department in charge of inspecting mining operations in the state of Minas Gerais at the time of the disaster in Mariana in November 2015 was fear of the retirement of another 40% of the public employees in the following two years. The dam failure in Brumadinho occurred just over three years after the disaster in Mariana. One day after the failure, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources announced a R$250 million fine to the Vale company due to the tragedy in Brumadinho.

Brazilian judicial authorities have also frozen US$3 billion of Vale'sassets, saying real estate and vehicles would be seized if the company could not come up with the full amount.

Experts say that Brazil suffers from poor regulatory structure and regulatory gaps that stimulate impunity. Three years after the disaster in Mariana, the companies involved in that environmental disaster have paid only 3.4% of R$785 million in fines.

The dam failure happened three years and two months after the Bento Rodrigues dam disaster, which killed 19 people and destroyed the Bento Rodrigues village. The Bento Rodrigues disaster is considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history and is still under investigation.

Collapse

The collapse occurred just after noon and the mud hit the mine's administrative area, where hundreds of the mine's employees were having lunch, as well as the "Vila Ferteco", a small community about 1 kilometre from the mine. At 3:50 p.m., the mud reached the Paraopeba River, the region's main river, which supplies water to one third of the Greater Belo Horizonte region.

According to the national registry of the National Mining Agency, the Córrego do Feijão dam, built in 1976 by the Ferteco Mineração (acquired by Vale in 2001), was classified as a small structure with low risk and high potential damage. In a statement, the State Department of Environment and Sustainable Development reported that the venture was duly licensed. In December 2018, Vale obtained a license to reuse waste from the dam (about 11.7 million cubic meters) and to close down activities. The dam has not received tailings since 2014 and, according to the company, underwent bi-weekly field inspections.

The Inhotim Institute, the largest open-air museum in the world, which is located in Brumadinho, was evacuated as a precaution.

On 27 January, around 5:30 a.m., after a detected increase in its level, sirens announced the risk of another nearby dam (also belonging to Vale) collapsing (dam n°6). About 24,000 residents from several districts of Brumadinho were evacuated, including the city's downtown area. Due to the risk, rescue operations were briefly suspended.

Aftermath

On 27 January 2019, at least 58 people were found dead, 305 were considered missing and 192 people were rescued alive. At a press conference, Vale's president, Fabio Schvartsman, stated that most of the victims are Vale's employees. At a railroad branch, in the Córrego do Feijão region, three locomotives and 132 wagons were buried. Four railwaymen are missing. The mud also struck and destroyed two sections of railway bridge and about 100 metres of railway track.

The dam failure has released about 12 million cubic meters of tailings. According to experts, the metals in the tailings will likely be incorporated into the rivers' soil and will end up impacting the region's whole ecosystem. Also, according to environmentalists, the waste stream can reach the São Francisco River, which in addition to Minas Gerais, passes through four other Brazilian states and will pass through the dams of two hydroelectricplants: Retiro Baixo and Três Marias. The National Water Agency (ANA) stated that the tailings can pollute over 300 kilometres of rivers. Vale's president, Fabio Schvartsman, said that the dam had been inactive since 2015 and that the material should not be moving too much. "I believe that the environmental risk, in this case, will be much lower than that of Mariana," he said.

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, sent three ministers to follow the rescue efforts. The Governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, announced the formation of a task force to rescue the victims with dozens of firefightersbeing reallocated to Brumadinho.

In a sign of solidarity to the Brazilian government, the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu sent to the city of Brumadinho a search and rescue group of 130 civil defense specialists and navy divers to aid Brazilian specialists in finding possible survivors. On 27 January 2019, the Turkish foreign ministry office[22] and President of Russia Vladimir Putin offered condolences. Pope Francis.