Emergency-response worker taking part in rescue operations following the 2019 Vale tailings-dam collapse, which killed 270 people. (Photo by Maria Otavia Rezende)
A newly announced settlement covering the more recent of two devastating iron-ore tailings dam collapses in Brazil in the past six years marks an improvement over an agreement reached in the wake of the first disaster, experts say. But Brazil, whose mining industry operates an estimated 900 tailings dams nationwide, has yet to take sufficient steps to prevent such failures in the future, the experts warn. This month’s R$37.7 billion (US$7 billion) settlement, announced on Feb. 4, addresses a horrific dam collapse in the state of Minas Gerais that killed 270 people in January 2019. (See "Fatal deluge signals wider tailings-dam safety risk" —EcoAméricas, January 2019.) The rupture, at an iron-ore operation owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale, sent 12 million cubic meters of sludge racing down a hillside, flattening structures including a... [Log in to read more]
