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Brazil kneels in Minas Gerais. A dam at Brumadinho in the great Belo Horizonte, broke out and spread death. The structure was under the responsibility of the mining company Vale, which was already in the eye of the storm in 2015 when a dam also tied to the company in Mariana, in the same state, gave way, killing 19 people and leaving irreparable damage in the environment. . Three years later, the country is appalled by yet another, even more serious, disaster that has killed at least seven people and has taken five more to hospital. Firefighters search under the ton of mud at least 150 missing. "We regret with great regret that this is a huge tragedy that took us completely by surprise, and I am completely torn by what happened," said Fabio Schvartsman, president of Vale. At the time of the accident, there were just over 400 people, including employees and subcontractors. It was lunch time and some employees were at the company cafeteria. "The restaurant and an administrative building were buried," said the executive, responsible for the mining company since 2017.
A major service and rescue operation is being set up in the Brumadinho area. At least 172 Vale employees are already safe, as firefighters have saved at least 100 people trapped by sludge and 9 others already buried in tailings. This morning, President Jair Bolsonaro and part of his team will fly over the site of the tragedy and, on his return, still in Belo Horizonte, he will announce new actions of the Union. "After Mariana, we expected that there was not another (tragedy), but unfortunately we have this problem now," said the new president, who will cross the Minas Gerais before being operated on Monday to remove the colostomy bag, the knife he was a victim of last September
As soon as he became aware of the Brumadinho incident, the Bolsonaro government created a crisis office and ordered the Sending a full military contingent to Juiz de Fora to badist the victims and the actions of the Defense. According to the Plbadto Palace, three ministers also traveled to Minas Gerais to badess the scale of the disaster: Ricardo Salles (Environment), Gustavo Canuto (Regional Development) and Bento Albuqu.
Questions remain as to what happened in Minas Gerais, but the truth is that this accident has heightened the debate about the Bolsonaro government's approach to the management and protection of human rights. 39; environment. The Brazilian president has always shown disdain for the subject and even considered the end of the Ministry of the Environment. His government has already shown a willingness to make environmental licenses more flexible and give businesses more autonomy to manage projects that require natural resource management.
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Vale's case is also emblematic: the Brumadinho Dam was being dismantled – in fact, according to the Company, it has not received any new mining residues since 2015 – and had obtained since December an environmental license granted by the Department of the Environment and Sustainable Development (Semad). "The project, as well as the dam, are duly authorized, and in December 2018, a permit was granted for the reuse of waste stored in the dam and for its dismantling (closure of activities), "Semad said. According to Vale's president, the dam had been audited by consultants who had demonstrated stability and the company had periodically reviewed the structure. One of the companies that audited it was the German Tuv Sud, according to Fabio Schwartsman. The company also had an emergency siren system to warn of potential dangers, but doubts remain as to their effectiveness during the accident. According to the first reports of firefighters, there was no sound warning before the mudslide.
Environmentalists and activists in the region argue with both Semad and Vale about the dam situation. They say that for years, they have denounced the problems of the dam, built with the least expensive technique and considered less safe, according to experts. "If the law prohibited the construction of upstream dams (built with residues) over human communities, like many countries, there would be fewer disasters," said Guilherme Meneghin, the prosecutor in charge of sinister of Mariana.
The panorama of Brumandinho is far from isolated, or a problem of the current government. There are about 450 dams in Minas Gerais and at least 22 of them have no guarantee of stability. Former senator Marina Silva was one of the voices that raised the tone to highlight Brazil's mistake in the public and private management of natural resources. "After three years of serious crimes against the environment in Mariana, with investigations still incomplete and punished responsibly, history is repeating itself as a tragedy in Brumadinho." It is unacceptable that public authorities and mining companies nothing learned, "she writes on Twitter." How can I say that we learned after Mariana's accident? "said Vale's CEO, who saw the company's shares in the company. collapse on the stock markets in Brazil and abroad According to the chain GloboNews, the government of Minas Gerais has obtained a court decision that requires the company to contribute to the ransom and freeze a billion reais on the accounts of the multinational.
Marina Silva, former Minister of the Environment, this do not sound "Tragedies of this magnitude are not accidents, but crimes," she told the magazine Epoch, a motto that governed social networks. "The tragedy of Brumadinho should open the eyes of the government." The environment is not left-handed from the left: it is respect for the lives of people and the planet, the government must regulate and inspect more energy without demonizing who it is, "wrote the Former President – President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on Twitter
As time pbaded, the tragedy of Brumandinho was gaining in detail.According to the authorities, there was not a single roadblock in but three in the complex: the first burst of mud led to the closure of two other dams Until the publication of this report, there was no official list under the name of missing persons. The anguish occurred by phone and Whatsapp groups in the area exchanged information about contact attempts. "We are very likely to only save bodies," said the governor of Minas, Romeo Zema
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