Brazil: London lobby on fourth anniversary of mining disaster

London Mining Network campaigners

Source: London Mining Network

Earlier today, the London Mining Network, War on Want and Global Justice Now handed in a letter at BHP's London office, addressed to the company's chair Ken MacKenzie, on the fourth anniversary of Brazil's Samarco tailings dam collapse. The failure of the dam, holding back iron mining waste, triggered the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history.

The Fundão dam and the associated iron ore mine, called Samarco, is operated by a mining company of the same name - owned by British-Australian company BHP and Brazilian mining giant Vale.

Today, in the impacted areas of the Mariana district of southeast Minas Gerais state, ground zero of the disaster, all that remains are ruins of towns, a devastated landscape and thousands of people waiting for some kind of compensation. Four years on and communities are demanding houses, reparations, justice from BHP & Vale, which they have been denied so far. Experts say Brazil's Rio Doce region will take decades to recover.

The collapse of the dam which held back tailings (toxic waste) from the mine on 5 November 2015, killed 20 people and devastated everything in its wake with the release of 48.7 million cubic metres of toxic sludge into the 530-mile long Rio Doce, affecting an area of the Atlantic Ocean over 370 miles away from the dam. The disaster displaced as many as 1.4 million people who lived in villages next to the river. Four years later, the devastating impacts are still being felt, and Samarco hasn't rebuilt even one house.

The letter, which was also sent to joint owner Vale, asked four questions of the BHP company:

1. Why a technical assessment has only been carried out in two affected towns when many other communities are affected as well.

2. If communities will have access to full risk assessment reports and evacuation plans in local languages, and if they will be fully represented as stakeholders, to participate in the negotiations and planning processes that have a direct impact on their health, livelihoods, spiritual wellbeing and the environment.

3. What about the risk of water, sediment and soil contamination along the Rio Doce and the potential impacts to health, and why studies into this only began in 2018, three years after the dam collapse.

4. If BHP, being a leading player in the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), will ensure that the upcoming ICMM report on tailings dam management will include recommendations to the industry that will reduce the risk from the existing stock of tailings dams in contexts where independent auditing and strong regulation are lacking.

In January 2019 another mining dam - also in Minas Gerais and also owned by Samarco - collapsed, leaving 270 people dead or missing. It was Brazil's deadliest industrial accident ever.

LINK

London Mining Network - https://londonminingnetwork.org