‘They do not respect our land. They do not respect our people’. Brazil’s traditional people take on BHP in one of the world’s biggest class actions

Australian mining giant BHP is at the centre of one of the world’s largest class actions, the trial for which started this week in London.

The Fundão Dam in Mariana, Brazil, co-owned by BHP, collapsed in 2015 spilling a gigantic wave of toxic mud across 700 kilometres of land. Nineteen people were killed, villages and livestock wiped out, vast areas of land rendered uninhabitable and rivers and water supplies contaminated.

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