Terrible disaster in Brazil: Dam rupture launches toxic waste on river basin, Many dead or missing.

a reply to: Frocharocha

These people and "life" are the salt of the earth. My heart goes out to the devastation they face. I only wish there were real agencies who we could trust to send $$$ to to help. A culture of love, family, respect for the environment, seems the Angles are crying and the tipping point for Mother earth has been beaten and raped by the greedy. This could have been avoided.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Frocharocha

"It raises the question: are all of their other tailings dams across the world structurally sound?" Mr Burton said. "This could raise eyebrows about how they are managing the risks at other operations."

www.smh.com.au...

There are reports that locals fear the sludge from the dams may be toxic. But Samarco claims the mine waste is "inert".

"It consists mostly by silica [sand] from the iron ore processing and presents no chemical that is harmful to health," the firm's statement said.

Other tailings dams could burst and the owners will claim the sludge is harmless.


www.theguardian.com...

Brazil’s national water agency, ANA, has warned that the presence of arsenic, zinc, copper and mercury now present in the Rio Doce make the water untreatable for human consumption.

"Early next week the mudslide is expected to reach the Atlantic, with a potentially devastating impact on the fishing communities along the coast of the state of Espírito Santo."

"On a visit to the affected region on Thursday, President Dilma Rousseff described the incident as “possibly the biggest environmental disaster to have impacted one of the major regions of our country”.

She compared the scale of the damage to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and laid the blame squarely on Samarco."



www.afr.com...
"It looked like a scene from hell. It even smelled of sulphur,"

"The local schoolmistress became a national heroine, leading all 56 of her young charges in a wild scramble for safety."

"The muddy mass slowly but surely made its way into two river systems, Rio do Carmo​ and the bigger Rio Doce​, in a 500 kilometre journey to the Atlantic Ocean."

"Some 228 municipalities in two Brazilian states (Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo) are located in the Rio Doce basin, many of them affected as the mud slurry travelled down river systems, killing off masses of fish life, causing hydroelectric plants on the route to shut down to protect their turbines from the mud and making the water temporarily undrinkable for hundreds of thousands of residents whose cities draw their water from the system.

According to Samarco, the mudslide for the most consists of sand particles and presents no chemical element harmful to health. According to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the sludge is mainly composed of iron oxide and sand. Local government has collected mud to test if it is toxic or not and results are expected by the beginning of December."

Thanks for posting this. Indeed, the owners of the ocompany responsible are saying the mud is harmless, but you just need to look down the photos and videos, fish are dying, and the company was know to store heavy metals in the dam (because they work with mining.)

...wait so the misspelling isn't related to Futurama?

Either way, thanks for posting.

Terrible news though. Hope no one else was killed.

Nope xD, it's been ages since i don't see an episode of futurama, so i didn't got the jokes.

How convenient for the dam to "rupture", the idea that the company wasn't doing anything to get rid of their toxic waste in the first place besides just pooling it up until they probably ran out of room makes me wonder how much of an accident it really was in the first place. Wouldn't be the first time a company slammed the environment and people in the name of profit. Any money that changes hands will be irrelevant to the damage done.

Oh no, this is terrible. This just came to my attention. I hope my good friend that lives in Minas Gerais is alive and well.

originally posted by: EA006
Worldwide this has been a terrible week.

It has, but this happened the week before, on November 5 or 6, I saw it on Euronews at the time.

Another deliberate attack to Earth and it's inhabitants. The architects of these events are going to pay in biblical proportions, Old Testament style.

Seems like I can't get through reading time on ATS anymore without crying. (I know it's the world and not ATS).

This is so so horrific. Brazil has been having such a difficult time anyway, now this.

This is the type thing I want the U.S. to be able to swoop into and assist in whatever way we can, and be good neighbors, but of course we are too preoccupied with terrorists, like the rest of world, to be able to do much of anything else.
(I feel my resentment starting to build -- yes, terrorists, against you)

They will have to clean up and start over. What else can they do? God Bless Brazil.

a reply to: Frocharocha

"It raises the question: are all of their other tailings dams across the world structurally sound?" Mr Burton said. "This could raise eyebrows about how they are managing the risks at other operations."

I've always thought we put so many chemicals in that junk we essentially neutralized it. Am I mistaken?

Thanks for sharing and translating. As I recall a member mentioning about this, but couldn't post it yet. Very unfortunate. Regards to the loss of life and destruction from this.

Unbelievable.

How are these corporate bastards getting away with this all over the world time and time again ?!

And how are these people going to be relocated to a safe environment (if there's even any safe environment left to go to in the area), who's going to pay for that ?!

Who's going to pay for the cleanup costs ?
Who's going to scrub the water tables and contaminated soil ?

Thousands upon thousands of people, flora, and fauna are going to be effected by this.

Ugh, sickening.

Heart breaking and infuriating. Toxic sludge. They need an Erin Brockovitch, and a huge litigation. Make the corporations who we all know did this, pay up and clean up. Add in Millions in punitive damages.

MAn that is awful ....poor people having to deal with this mess and it is long way from over.......

Corporations should be footing the bill and cleaning up their act

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

that is terrible... also 175 miles from rio de janeiro where the 2016 summer olympics will be held....will any other dams fail
with the olympics coming, they will do everything to downplay any bad thing that happens

a reply to: research100

Fluck the Olympics. We have real World issues going on while people are training to dangle from hoops and run faster. Faster into a sludge World. The focus should be on what can be done to remove all toxic chemicals from being used and how to dispose of them safely. Let all that Olympic energy be put into that area and give a gold medal for that. Not to squat on the Olympics but seeing this troubled the dog out of me then I get a mental image of someone sponsored by Mcdonalds to do flips all day when we need real problem solving applications. I pray to GOD people switch their focus without more devastation having to occur.

www.theguardian.com...

. . . investigators are probing reports that Vale contributed to higher water volumes behind the dam by sending waste from one of its nearby mines to Samarco’s tailings pond. When a reporter asked about the reports at the news conference, the executives did not answer.

In industry risks are taken and warnings are ignored. Take Fukushima for example. For years warnings were given about what could occur, but the dollar signs blinded their eyes.

There are almost certain to have been warnings from experienced engineers that were ignored.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

Isn't it great that they'll soon be able to sue a country that makes them clean up their act if it hurts their profits thanks to the TPP.

Very sad a troubling news especially for the people of Brazil and the ecosystem. I'm a sportsman and conservationist and it burn my ass when stuff like this happens. Our rivers and lakes are essential for life as we know it yet we allow companies to destroy and pollute at will.

I live in Michigan and the stuff I've seen done to the great lakes is sickening. I'm also part of the aquarium hobby I like to keep and breed tropical fish fish from Brazil. It's sad watching the things I care about be destroyed.

I once saw a river of turds over a mile long being dumped into Lake St. Clair. There has been numerous chemical spills of millions upon millions of gallons of cancer causing chemicals dumped into the St. Clair River. Yet when they announce it it's a 20 word article in the back of the paper. They've even found the chemicals at the water plant we get our drinking water from.

Lake Huron is a dead and sterile sea because a invasive shellfish has sucked the lake dry of any nutrients.

a reply to: Kester

Thanks, Kester for the information.

Tailings dams, waste from mining operations, are stored behind "makeshift" dams. There all the waste from mining operations are collected. Whether mining coal or metals, these 'temporary' storage dams are called tailings dams because this is what is left over at the 'tail' end of mining operations. Be it coal or metal mining, the process for mining and and the leftover itself is highly toxic and they need some place to put it all. They don't just take it to the dump.

The tailings ponds are simply holes dug up by tractors and berms made of dirt to act as storage (as cheaply as possible). Usually the mining operation uses water from nearby streams and usually the dam is built on that estuary. They take the water from the river and return it behind the dam to build up and up, until one day… theres a storm or the dam itself fails due to age or lack of maintenance.

These aren't regular dams, they are just 'temporary', built locally to cut the cost of mining. The less the mining company spends on the waste the more money they make at the front end of operations. The more bribes I suppose the more legislation is blocked, the more environmentally 'unfriendly' their operations can become. Who cares about waste?

In fact what better way to get rid of it than have an '''accident'''. Whoops, flush, all gone. They can't clean that up any more than they can clean up FUKU or the Gulf Oil disaster.

Another pandoras box opened, unintentionally of course.

Welp now I am horrified in a new way...

Thanks for the post... better to be horrified and aware than surprised and dead.

a reply to: intrptr

www.bdlive.co.za...

. . . he delivered a drilling team from a company called Geocontrole to a large wastewater dam run by local iron ore miner Samarco. That was the last he saw of them.

The three men, who told him they were there to conduct tests, were swallowed up the following day by the torrent of mud set loose by the sudden failure of two dams at the site.

Drilling, extra water, sounds deliberate.

As yet, no one has said why the dams failed.

Locals remain cynical about the prospect of reform. "It will all end in pizza," says Mr Oliveira, using the Brazilian saying that means the dispute will lead to no meaningful changes.