{"id":3048,"date":"2019-02-08T04:19:43","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T04:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2019-02-08T04:19:43","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T04:19:43","slug":"thats-going-to-burst-brazilian-dam-workers-say-they-warned-of-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2019\/02\/08\/thats-going-to-burst-brazilian-dam-workers-say-they-warned-of-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"‘That’s going to burst’: Brazilian dam workers say they warned of disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/strong>he Brazilian mining dam which collapsed in January, killing hundreds of people<\/a>, suffered a leak last year that compromised its safety, according to employees who allege the mine\u2019s operators did not inform the workforce or relocate a canteen and administration building that were destroyed in the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hundred and forty-two people died and 194 are still missing after the dam near Brumadinho in Minas Gerais state collapsed on 25 January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day of the disaster, Vale \u2013 the Brazilian company which owns the mine \u2013 said the dam was regularly checked, most recently on 22 January, and had received \u201cdeclarations of condition of stability\u201d from T\u00dcV S\u00dc<\/p>\n\n\n\n

German inspection company. Four days after the disaster, police arrested<\/a>three Vale employees and two engineers from T\u00dcV S\u00dcD, but on Tuesday a high court ordered their release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was no leak in the dam,\u201d a Vale spokeswoman said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But three mine workers told the Guardian that around July last year, repairs were carried out after the dam leaked water near its base. Another man said his brother \u2013 who worked at the mine and is still missing \u2013 was so worried about the leak he planned to leave his job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 600 people were gathered at the mine\u2019s canteen and administrative area when the dam failed, releasing 11.7m cubic meters of sludgy mining waste known as tailings.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCTV videos show the enormous, grass-covered structure\u00a0collapsing into a deluge of mud<\/a>\u00a0which flattened the mining complex and tore across the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fernando Coelho, 35, lost his father Olavo Coelho, 63, in the disaster. The two men lived together, and both worked at the mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fernando said that around July last year, his father was called in to work at around 10pm one night after a leak was spotted on the lower surface of the dam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fernando Coelho, who was working at a nearby ore treatment unit, was asked to find sand and gravel for the repair. He then followed the night\u2019s events on his radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe supervisor found the mud leaking,\u201d he said. \u201cThey called for my father, because he had worked his whole life with dams and mines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 4pm the following day, workers had been brought in to fix it and the area had been sealed off. \u201cThey did the repair and said there was no problem,\u201d he\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coelho broke into tears as he remembered his father warning him to steer clear of the dam. \u201cThat\u2019s going to burst at any time,\u201d he recalled him saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fernando<\/a>
 Fernando Coelho. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Coelho has related the same events to state prosecutors. A spokesman for prosecutors said they would not comment on an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dam safety experts said that such a leak would mean the dam was not safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA leak like that \u2026 would inherently make the dam more unstable,\u201d said David Chambers, an expert on tailings dam failures who co-founded the\u00a0Center for Science in Public Participation<\/a>. \u201cAny kind of leak through the face\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the dam is significant. It shouldn\u2019t do that if it was working properly.\u201dAdvertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brumadinho dam was built in 1976 using the \u201cupstream\u201d method, in which tailings themselves<\/a> are used to build the dam. (A more expensive method uses rock and earth to contain the waste.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same method was used to build the Fund\u00e3o dam in the same state, which failed<\/a> in November 2015, killing 19 people and causing an environmental catastrophe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fund\u00e3o was operated by Samarco \u2013 a joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton \u2013 and though the companies have spent billions of dollars on clean-up, Samarco has only paid a fraction of the fines levied. An independent report blamed the disaster on \u201cliquefaction<\/a>\u201d a phenomenon in which solids act like liquids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, a T\u00dcV S\u00dcD report concluded that the Brumadinho dam was stable. But it highlighted drainage problems and recommended installing new water pressure monitors. According to Vale, workers were fitting the new monitors on the day the dam burst \u2013 over four months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 de Gouveia, 53, narrowly survived the disaster because he was working high above the tailings tank in an ore treatment unit. He hung on as it began to fall apart while the sea of mud passed beneath, and eventually crawled out across broken fittings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jos\u00e9<\/a>
 Jos\u00e9 de Gouveia. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw a group of people who ran \u2013 but they had no chance, they were overtaken by the mud,\u201d he said. \u201cWorkmates beside me slipped and fell and died there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gouveia also saw men working on a leak at the foot of the dam around last July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were containing a little leak soon after the rainy season. It was seeping water in several places at the bottom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luis Castro, 60, who works for Reframax, a subcontracted company, said he saw crews working on the dam after workmates talked about a leak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe heard there had been a little water leak, but we didn\u2019t know what the risk could be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro also managed to escape from the ore treatment unit when the dam failed. \u201cI thought about jumping, I looked down and I saw people shouting: \u2018I\u2019m going to die,\u2019\u201d he said. He paused, overcome with emotion. \u201cIt hurts. It hurts really bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Luis<\/a>
 Luis Castro and his wife, Ivaneth Fatima Amorim. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Survivors described how quickly the mud descended. \u201cThere was a loud boom and then brown smoke in the sky, and the earth shaking,\u201d said Messias Leite, 30, who fled for higher ground. \u201cIt was a horrible scene,\u201d he said.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Jo\u00e3o Xavier, a state assembly representative for Minas Gerais, proposed a state law that would have prohibited 90% of the state\u2019s \u201cupstream\u201d dams and created more rigorous regulations for the rest. The bill was defeated, Xavier said, by the powerful mining lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey argued this would harm mining in the state but the opposite is true: what harms mining is living with environmental tragedies,\u201d Xavier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dam collapse: the desperate search at Brazil’s ‘ground zero’<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the missing is \u00cdcaro Alves, 33, an electrician also working for Reframax. His brother Washington Alves, 36, a mechanic, said \u00cdcaro was worried after hearing of a leak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said he heard someone say it was leaking water through a crack,\u201d said Washington Alves. \u201cHe was scared \u2013 so much that he was only going to stay another two or three months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alves left two young children. He called his brother ten minutes before the dam collapsed and said he wanted a traditional Brazilian barbeque the next day. \u201cIt was his day off,\u201d said Washington Alves. \u201cBut he never arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brazilian mining dam which collapsed in January, killing hundreds of people, suffered a leak last year that compromised its safety, according to employees who allege the mine\u2019s operators did not inform the workforce or relocate a canteen and administration building that were destroyed in the disaster. One hundred and forty-two people died and 194 are still missing after the dam… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3049,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}