Five years since the Brumadinho mining tragedy: a “crime” awaiting justice

Five years after the Brumadinho mining disaster, in Brazil, firefighters are still looking for three of the 270 deceased, while the families of the victims wait for justice to be done against what they consider a “irreparable crime” from the multinational Vale.

It was 12:28 local time on January 25, 2019 when an 86-meter-high dam at the Córrego do Feijão mine collapsed at the Paraopeba Complex, owned by the Brazilian Vale, one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of iron.

The collapse of the structure generated a tsunami of 12 million cubic meters of mineral waste that affected 26 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais (southeast), in one of the largest socio-environmental disasters in the history of Brazil.

The wave of mud buried the lives of 270 people, although some official bodies and victims’ associations count two more when adding the fetuses of two deceased pregnant women.

Three missing persons still being searched

The searches are not over yet; the anguish of family members, either. The bodies of Tiago Tadeu, Nathália Porto and Maria de Lourdes have yet to be found. The first two worked for Vale, the third was a tourist.

Nayara Porto is 32 years old and lost four of her relatives in the tragedy: her husband, her sister’s boyfriend, his brother and a distant brother-in-law. She is one of the founders of Avabrum, the association that brings together some 600 affected relatives.

“We cannot allow these crimes to continue occurring in Brazil and for that there must be justice”, he states in an interview with EFE. At the moment, no one responsible is in jail.

Vale closed a reparation agreement with the Government of Minas Gerais that amounted to 37.7 billion reais (7.6 billion dollars/7 billion euros at the current exchange rate) for the environmental, moral and collective damages caused.

That in the civil sphere. In prison, the process moves “at a snail’s pace”, Porto says.

The Federal Public Ministry has denounced 16 managers and technicians of Vale and the German consultancy Tüv-Süd, the latter accused of fraudulently certifying the safety of the facilities, for the aggravated homicide of the 270 victims; and both companies for environmental crimes.

For Bruno Nominato, the federal prosecutor responsible for the Brumadinho criminal process, there is no doubt: there were 270 intentional homicides.

“They knew (the disaster) could happen, they foresaw that outcome and still they did what they did. “It was predictable, they didn’t care and they took the risk,” explains to EFE.

The case was being processed in the Minas Gerais Court, but the defense of the accused, among whom was the then president of Vale, Fábio Schvartsman, alleged a conflict of jurisdiction and the case ended up in the federal courts by order of the Supreme Court. in December 2022. A maneuver to save time, according to Porto.

In practice, that decision restarted the process. Today, five years later, it is in the phase of summoning the accused. Then will come the investigation stage and the trial, which the Prosecutor’s Office wants to be with a jury.

“A set of negligence”

Nominato maintains that neither the rains of those days nor some drilling in the mine were the main triggers of the catastrophe and yes “a set of negligence” by both companies.

“Vale had studies that indicated the number of people who could die if the dam broke. “He was aware that this dam was in an unacceptable risk situation and he did not take measures.”complaint.

“We hope it does not go unpunished,” adds the attorney, although he rules out a ruling for this year, which in any case would be appealable at higher levels.

The Brumadinho tragedy also came three years after a similar one in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais and where the failure of several dams of the Samarco mining company, controlled by Vale and BHP Billiton, caused 19 deaths and a huge environmental tragedy.

Among the evidence collected by the Prosecutor’s Office for the Brumadinho case is an email from an anonymous worker directly alerting Schvartsman of the danger of keeping the mine active.

Schvartsman’s response to that e-mail, to which Avabrum and the Prosecutor’s Office had access, was: “I would like to discover who this comrade is who believes he can write that mountain of outrages with impunity. “This guy is a cancer that can hinder our company and harm the entire organization.”