In Brumadinho the search for the Missing is not over even weeks after the dam break at a Brazilian iron ore mine. Survivors waiting for compensation of the operating company. Nádia Pontes, Brumadinho.
Edson Albanez (article image) returns for the last Time to the ruins of his house, in which he has lived for 30 years. Behind a broken iron gate, mud and debris pile up. Everything was here – a house, a swimming pool, Pets, a car, documents, memories of a life – is gone. Albanez’ plot of land is located just a Kilometer from the dam of the retention basin for ore slurry residues are removed, the on 25. January broke. Subsequently, a huge mudslide made with 70 kilometers per hour your gone and buried, without any warning, the canteen of the mine operator Vale and then houses in the nearby small town of Brumadinho.
Albanez’ wife, Sirlei de Brito Ribeiro, didn’t make it at that time, to bring themselves to safety in time. Her body was found five days after the dam break. She was Secretary for social development in Brumadinho. “At the age of 64 I have to start again from scratch – in a way that I never expected would have; without my wife, without my home. I’ve lost everything,” said Albanez, has worked for 22 years at Vale. He himself was horizons at a Meeting of the 25 kilometers southwest to the nearby state capital, Belo, when the disaster occurred.
Still a mud desert that needs to be searched
Salvage crews find body parts
In the vicinity of Albanez’ plot of firefighters in the mud of the desert, to become the Brumadinho is still on the search for 134 Missing people. They use heavy equipment. 176 the bodies could yet be found. In the past few days, the fire Department found parts of only a single body. These will also be subjected to a DNA analysis.
In addition to the fire of nearly 140 soldiers in Brumadinho and the Region are also still in daily use. In the beginning, there were 470. With helicopters, amphibious vehicles and excavators to scour them in search of bodies a area of nearly 270 acres.
An Overview of the top
Maria Aparecida dos Santos is not gonna believe. It is the most absurd days of your life, the 44-Year-old from Brumadinho. To blame all of the suffering has clearly Vale: “I am outraged and will continue to be. I don’t understand what was going on with the siren. We have heard it so many times, if the sample was alarm. But on the day of the dam’s collapse, it has remained silent.” Santos worked on a farm that was buried under the mud masses. She now lives with her family in one of the 470 hotel rooms, paid to the Vale, for those of you. have become homeless. According to the mining group for those Affected has rented additional 74 homes in Brumadinho and Belo Horizonte.
Everything Maria Aparecida dos Santos now owns, from clothes to money for drugs, was donated. Vale has received, apart from the paid – for hotel rooms – still no financial support. 25. January had arrived to Santos straight to home, to lunch, to warm up for her daughter when she heard a Bang and a strong Wind felt. Then she saw that a giant mud avalanche approached. You grabbed your phone and began to race with your daughter. “Don’t look back”, she said to the nine-year-old Santos says. As they thought they were safe, she called her husband and friends, working a little further down in the valley, and threatened to reach the mud also: “I could so save the 25 lives.”
The points on the screen document where bodies were found
Vale will pay off a year minimum wage to citizens
The mining group Vale has delivered to today, still no explanation for the dam break. An independent Committee has been established to investigate the case.
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Who is the group behind the dam breakage of Brumadinho?
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Who is the group behind the dam breakage of Brumadinho?
People living in the vicinity of similar dams that have been brought in part as a precautionary measure, Vale has informed. Unlike the dam break of the Mariana three years ago, which cost 19 lives, and the river Rio Doce on hundreds kilometres to the Atlantic polluted, the mining giant is now more important to compensate those Affected in a timely manner financially. Relatives of death victims receive after registration or the equivalent of about 23,500 euros.
Residents, farmers and traders want to compensate the group with 3500 to 12,000 euros. Twelve months all the inhabitants of Brumadinho to get from the Vale to the statutory minimum wage is paid. The agreement was signed before the regional court of Minas Gerais. Nevertheless, the state try to prosecutors and defenders to reach in addition, Vale has to pay compensation to all those Affected. “We want a solution involving the victims; a fair redress in the context of the Possible, as quickly as possible,” says defender Antônio Lopes de Carvalho.
How but or bad the water is in the Rio Paraopeba
Mud contaminated the Rio Paraopeba
The iron ore mine in Brumadinho meanwhile, is still. The employees that survived until the end of 2019 your normal salary. What happens after that is unclear. While close to the former dam already streets are repaired, continue to be toxic sludge, and reaches the Rio Paraopeba, one of the most important sources of drinking water in the Region. According to estimates, the residues from the ore extraction, have penetrated so far, around 150 kilometres of the river. The Brazilian Institute of environment and renewable natural resources (Ibama) imposed fines for Vale are now at the equivalent of over 59 million Euro.
“I had no more strength,” says Maria Aparecida dos Santos. “Only because of my daughter I have managed to escape the mud. But the tragedy is not over, the river carries the mud. And there are still so many Missing. Brumadinho is destroyed. But I’m going to stay until the end and fighting for justice,” said Santos, who is still waiting for news of missing friends and neighbors.