Brazilian dam: how a German company approved the Brazilian dam before its burst

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Six months after the fatal collapse of a dam in Brazil, new evidence suggests that the disaster could have been avoided.

The investigators believe that the German company that certified the security of the structure knew that it was vulnerable to collapse.

Nearly 300 people died when the collapse caused a mudslide near the town of Brumadinho, in the southeastern part of the country.

A prosecutor and a legislator said the German cabinet Tüv Süd was not cooperating.

They complain that society's lack of cooperation affects their investigations.

The BBC has seen emails showing that Tüv Süd's own dam badysis initially failed to meet official requirements.

How did the tragedy unfold?

The Brumadinho Dam collapsed in a few seconds on January 25th. A torrent of toxic sludge swept over the valley, engulfing everything and everyone in its path.

There was no warning. Sirens designed to prevent such a scenario have not triggered.

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Downstream, workers who had just had lunch in the canteen of the mine would have had little chance of escaping.

Victims still found

At home, in the hills above the mine, Aramaio describes how his sister, a table woman, served food in the canteen after it was destroyed by the mudslide.

His remains have never been found. His sister-in-law was also killed.

"We are devastated," he says. "We feel destroyed."

Cleaning is still going on and even now they are finding bodies here.

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While several investigations are trying to establish exactly what happened in Brumadinho, new evidence emerges suggesting that the collapse and the resulting loss of life could and should have been avoided.

Prosecutors have many questions to ask the owner of the mine, Vale, but they have also focused on the role of the German company that inspected the dam in the months preceding the collapse.

The German company with an international name

Tüv Süd is a household name in Germany and a synonym for security.

The inspection company was established more than a century ago and offered safety checks on steam engines.

Get on an elevator these days and you will probably see its distinctive blue and white logo. It inspects and certifies all types of goods and services, including annual vehicle testing.

And it has exported its reputation to the international scene by conducting inspections around the world.

In 2013, he acquired an engineering consulting firm based in São Paolo, called the Project Office. It was the opportunity for Tüv Süd to gain a foothold in the lucrative Brazilian mining sector. The company has entered into several contracts with Vale, one of the largest mining companies in the world.

The Tüv Süd website describes itself as "a community of experts united by the belief that technology should improve people's lives".

What is the proof?

The structure that collapsed was a tailings dam. For decades, mine waste was piled up and grbaded.

In simple terms, unlike conventional dams, there is no wall or additional barrier; solid waste is held in place. Tailings dams are vulnerable to "liquefaction" when, for a variety of reasons, solid materials begin to act and move like a liquid, exposing them to a risk of collapse.

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Internal documents and emails seized by the investigators show that Tüv Süd employees had known for about a year that there was liquefaction at the dam.

The company had signed contracts worth € 4m (£ 3.6m, $ 4.5m) with Vale at the site and around the site, including one, signed in December 2017, to evaluate and to propose solutions for liquefaction at the dam. One of these solutions would have failed in June 2018.

In the following months, e-mail exchanges showed that Tüv Süd's dam badyzes did not achieve the official level of safety required to certify the dam.

Investigators have now established that they have finally "solved" this problem by changing the way the dam was certified.

They have attached terms of use to certification: to make it dependent, for example, on the absence of explosions around the site – unlikely in the mining country. This allowed them to sign it despite its weakness.

Internal emails between Tüv Süd staff in Brazil (translated from Portuguese)

May 13, 2018: "We are finishing studies on the liquefaction of the B1 dam, but all indications are that it will not pbad."

May 15, 2018: "The results and the numbers leave us in a very vulnerable position."

November 9, 2018: "This dam has a liquefaction problem."

Two days after the collapse of the mine, during an exchange with officials, Tüv Süd employees acknowledge having also certified the stability of three other dams.

We try to rebadure his boss. "Do not worry, the three dams have been affected by the collapse of B1", hinting that the job can now be verified.

March 12, 2019: Tüv Süd wrote to the owner of the Vale mine.

"Our experts are unable to confirm the stability of any of the dams mentioned in this procedure (list of nine dams) … optimistic parameter choices were used in these calculations."

Learn more about the collapse of the dam:

Unanswered questions

What we do not know, that's why.

Was Tüv Süd under pressure from Vale?

It seems that the inspectors are worried about what could happen to Tüv Süd's contracts if they did not certify the dam. Two other companies refused to sign it and were dismissed.

It is also difficult to know how far the decisions of the Tüv Süd management chain have been taken.

Some e-mail exchanges reveal that local employees had the intention of communicating what was happening to at least one leader based in Germany.

"Lack of cooperation"

The Attorney General for Criminal Prosecutions, William Garcia Pinto Coelho, told the BBC that Tüv Süd "has decided to remain silent".

"I have no doubt that a more collaborative approach could bring new light to the case and also clarify what happened behind closed doors."

And, we were told, Tüv Süd did not cooperate in an investigation of the Brazilian parliament.

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It is one of two surveys of this type. A Senate investigation recently recommended that 14 people, mostly from Vale and two from Tüv Süd, be indicted without being identified by name.

Congresswoman Aurea Carolina said that the only senior Tüv Süd employee to testify was the compliance officer of Tüv Süd Brazil, who had never visited Brumadinho and could not answer any important questions. .

"In criminal proceedings, it is natural that the accused does not want to explain everything," she told the BBC.

"But it's a mbadive disaster with a shocking number of casualties – it's unprecedented in Brazil." This should involve our international relations with Germany because the Tüv Süd headquarters are there. based."

What companies say

Tüv Süd refused the BBC's interview request, but said that they were working intensively to establish what had happened.

Vale indicates that regular internal and external audits have been conducted on the site and that no anomalies involving imminent risk of failure have been detected.

The German Government has stated to the BBC that, although it expects all German companies to cooperate to the best of their abilities, it cooperates to the best of its abilities, but that it Finally, no liability in this case.

For a short time, the disaster has drawn the world's attention to the mining region of Brazil.

Those who have survived fear not to look back, leaving their unanswered questions and forgotten deaths.