generalspeaking

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Brazil's Industrial Disaster

"We are not dealing with an accident, but with a crime against people and nature. How many lives do we still have to lose [until] the Brazilian state and mining companies learn from their mistakes?" Greenpeace Brazil Campaigns director Nilo D'Ávila

"I could only see people screaming and shouting. The sirens did not work, only people shouting to advise others, everyone was desperate."
"[Two survivors in the hotel said employees didn't have time to advise anyone because] they could only run for their lives."
"It is devastating. Everyone here at the community is in shock. Nobody expected that to happen."
Karolainy Stefany de Jesus, 21, nearby resident of Brumadinho, Brazil

"The National Security Dam Policy was edited in 2010. It is a law that needed to be reviewed. After the accident in Mariana, various projects were presented but we couldn't finalize this change in the law, but this is essential."

"The responsibility of monitoring and avoiding future disasters is on all of us: private, state and federal. The idea is that we all sit at the table, listen to specialists, review the regulatory framework and improve this situation to avoid other disasters in the future."

Regional Development Minister Gustavo Canuto

An aerial view shows a collapsed bridge after flooding from a breached dam Friday in southeast Brazil

"We attended periodic meetings at their offices. No one had any information of any problems in the dam, but they were less than transparent. They wouldn't even share with us the presentations they made, for example."

"The only possible response is the full restoration of the Rio Doce basin. However, considering what happened in Mariana, I think we will still suffer for this for a very long time."

Local environmental activist Carolina de Moura

A Brazilian protester stands in front of a graffiti at Vale SA HQ

The death toll of the disaster has eclipsed Brazil's last major environmental disaster in 2015. (AP: Silvia Izquierdo)

Firefighters in Brazil have poised themselves to do a balancing act; walking, crawling, searching for survivors or bodies of those killed after an iron ore mining company's buildings were inundated with ore waste after a dam collapsed. Nearby neighbourhoods were also inundated with mud that was comprised of ore waste. Hundreds of people are missing of the 427 known to be present at the time of the mud slide, and 65 people have now been found dead. Six Vale mining executives have been arrested.

The day following the catastrophic collapse and mud inundation the expectation of further rescues was damped, the death toll expected to grow "exponentially", according to the Minas Gerais fire department. The sea of red-brown mud that surged over the landscape when the dam was breached on Friday is hampering search efforts. Up to eight metres in depth in places, searchers are forced to walk around the edges or to crawl agonizingly slowly on to the mud to prevent themselves sinking and drowning in it.

Searches were mostly focused on the Vale mining company cafeteria which is where many of its workers were seated, eating their lunch before the dam ruptured. The world's largest producer of iron ore, Vale SA's is now being accused of knowingly placing peoples' lives at risk. Helicopters in their search for bodies repeatedly took off and landed non-stop at the site while on the ground dozens of rescue dogs with their handlers searched for bodies through mountains of mud.

Fears of a second mine dam collapsing in Brumadinho caused rescue efforts to be suspended for about ten hours on Sunday, and some 24,000 people were warned to get themselves to higher ground. Civil engineers later claimed the second dam no longer posed a risk of collapse and full attention was returned to the scene of the collapse. As time goes on the mud is releasing some of its moisture and drying out, giving hope to firefighters being able to reach areas previously closed off to their searches.

The slow progress has resulted in residents beginning to launch their own searches in a desperate attempt to find loved ones, as anger mounted at the mining company, and questions began to rise that no warning siren was sounded before the collapse.