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In addition to intense mining activity, the city of Brumadinhosouth-east of Brazil, also lives of a nascent tourism, today very touched by the catastrophe caused by the collapse of a dam of ferrous waste belonging to the Brazilian mining giant Vale.
Pessimism seized this city of the state of Minas Gerais, which has found in tourism a promising source of income to reduce its extreme dependence on the mining sector and more particularly on Vale, the region's main economic engine.
Refresh in waterfalls cascades is one of the favorite activities of tourists who travel around Brumadinho.
Travel | The destination of the week and the best advice for the traveler
Every Friday.
The mud tsunami that devoured the company 's facilities, farms, inns, houses and roads last Friday left 65 dead, 279 missing and the feeling that something else had disappeared: 39, illusion of a city.
"Who will want to go to a risky site, where a dam can be broken at any time?" Said Natalia Farina, founder of the first hotel in Brumadinho, Hostel 70.
Around this city of about 33,000 inhabitants, there are countless waterfalls, rivers in which to bathe, hiking trails and an rich gastronomy of the interior, typical of Minas Gerais, a Brazilian state in which the entrance of foreign tourists increased by 65% in 2017.
But the biggest attraction is the Inhotim Museum, considered the largest cultural center of contemporary outdoor art in Latin America and evacuated in a hurry after the collapse of the dam.
The Inhotim complex offers a boardwalk linking 21 art rooms.
With more than 500 works of renowned national and international artists, Inhotim keeps the doors closed since the disaster, in solidarity with the victims, and will reopen on Thursday, January 31, although "attentive to the conditions of the region" . the advice of the museum.
Brazilian authorities were on alert for much of Sunday before the "imminent risk" of breaking a second dam in the Vale complex, a possibility that was ruled out in a matter of hours.
Leonardo Esteves is director of the Brumatur travel agency, founded six years ago, and says the tragedy comes at a time when there were "obvious signs that I would go back to growth"After the deep economic crisis of 2015 and 2016." I do not even want to project what will be the next years, "he said.
Facilities and exhibitions make Inhotim the largest open-air contemporary art cultural center in Latin America.
His company organizes trips abroad for neighbors in the region, many of whom work in Vale, and also offers tours to Inhotim to local or foreign tourists.
The first cancellations of trips since the disaster have already materialized in other partner agencies, says Esteves. "For the moment, we can not measure the extent of the damage, but they are already visible," he said.
In a small place where he sells flip-flops and caps, Francisco de Assis, a father of two, also expects the worst for the next few years.
"The economy is falling, Brumadinho has depended a lot on Vale," said Assis, after stating that the company "only thought about the money" because the dam that had erupted had to have been "emptied" some time ago. .
The disaster "will directly and indirectly affect the entire financial life of the population," said Darlene Roque, owner of a real estate agency bearing his name, dedicated mainly to temporary leasing.
A dip in the backwater of a river.
"All the money that goes around in our city comes from the jobs Vale generates, everything here depends on Vale," he says.
For now, the Brazilian mining giant has announced that it will donate 100,000 reals ($ 26,500) to each missing family.
In 2017, Vale's net earnings were R $ 17,627 million (approximately $ 4,680 million), an increase of 32% over the previous year. Until last September, profits reached $ 3,074 million.
EFE
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