Brazil seals 23 billion dollars from mining companies due to the collapse of a dam – DW – 10/25/2024

Mining giants BHP and Vale signed an agreement on Friday with the Brazilian government to pay almost 132 billion reais ($23 billion, 21.3 billion euros) in damages for the 2015 dam collapse that triggered one of the worst environmental disasters in the country.

The collapse, at an iron ore mine in the southeastern city of Mariana, triggered a giant landslide that killed 19 people, left hundreds homeless and contaminated the entire Doce River.

The mine was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP.

What’s in the deal?

Of the 132 billion reais that the two mining giants agreed to pay, 100 billion reais represent “new resources” that must be paid to the Brazilian authorities within a period of 20 years.

The first tranche of 5,000 million must be paid within 30 days.

The other 32 billion reais will be allocated to compensation and resettlement expenses for some 300,000 affected people. The total number of people affected by the disaster is believed to be much higher.

The government’s attorney general, Jorge Messias, said the money would allow local authorities to make payments to families affected by the tragedy and pay bills for environmental repairs.

The two companies had already agreed in 2016 to pay about a tenth of the sum agreed on Friday in damages, but negotiations were reopened three years ago after accusations of non-compliance by the Brazilian government.

More than a hundred lawsuits have been launched against mining companies over the disaster, including one being heard this week in which BHP is challenging its liability at the High Court in London.

More than 620,000 complainants, including 46 Brazilian municipalities and several indigenous communities, are seeking compensation estimated at 36 billion pounds ($47 billion, €43.2 billion). BHP denies liability.

What disaster was caused by the dam collapse?

The collapse caused the release of an immense amount of toxic mining waste into a major river in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, devastating entire towns.

The sludge was enough to fill 13,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, polluting the Doce River for 420 miles to the Atlantic Ocean, while flooding rainforests and waterways in two neighboring states.

Scientists say the mouth of the Twelve and parts of the southeast Atlantic coast are still contaminated with metals from the spill, affecting the area’s population of fish, birds, turtles, porpoises and whales.

The disaster “could have been avoided,” says Lula

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who attended the signing of the agreement in the capital, Brasilia, declared it the largest environmental payment in modern history.

“We are solving a disaster that could have been avoided, but was not,” Lula said in a room at the presidential palace, before accusing mining companies of pursuing profits over safety.

“I hope that the mining companies have learned their lesson: it would have cost them less to prevent (the disaster), much less,” Lula said at the event attended by representatives of both mining companies.

mm/lo (AFP, AP, Reuters)