Brazil seals $30bn compensation deal with BHP, Vale over 2015 dam collapse
Al Jazeera
The dam collapse unleashed wave of tailings in disaster that killed 19 people, left hundreds homeless, flooded forests.
Brazil has signed a 170 billion reais ($29.85bn) compensation agreement with miners BHP, Vale and Samarco for the Mariana dam collapse in 2015, one of the country’s worst environmental disasters.
The agreement was signed on Friday.
The collapse of the dam at the iron ore mine owned by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP, near the city of Mariana in southeastern Brazil, unleashed a wave of tailings in a disaster that killed 19 people, left hundreds homeless, flooded forests and polluted the length of the region’s Doce River.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attended a ceremony in Brasilia to mark the signing of the agreement, with the government saying the first instalment of 5 billion reais ($878m) must be paid within 30 days.
The agreement provides for the payment of 132 billion reais ($23bn), of which 100 billion reais ($17.5bn) represent “new resources” that must be paid to public authorities within 20 years by the companies involved in the tragedy.
