Marino D’Ângelo Júnior regularly takes antidepressants and medication to help him sleep. A former resident of Paracatu, a district of the city of Mariana in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the 54-year-old says he has lost his sense of self since 60m cubic metres of mining waste flattened his town, forcing him to live in a rented property near the centre of an environmental disaster that shocked the world eight years ago.
D’Ângelo is one of the survivors of the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam near Mariana. Almost a decade on, the people affected by Brazil’s worst environmental tragedy still await justice as they live under the shadow of the toxic mud that swept away life as they knew it.
Trucks transport ore through the Vale mine, near Bento Rodrigues, Minas Gerais, Brazil. 1n 2015, the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam near the city of Mariana unleashed 60m cubic metres of mining waste
“The collapse of a dam isn’t what you see on TV – the river of mud destroying things,” says D’Ângelo. “A dam failure entails an infinity of invisible ruptures. The rupture of connections, family links, communities, histories, dreams.”
D’Ângelo used to own a herd of 60 dairy cows before the incident but he began to sell them off as he found himself unable to work properly, which led to him being “forced into poverty”. A member of the Commission for People Affected by the Fundão Dam, D’Ângelo holds the mining companies responsible for the disaster and the subsequent neglect of the affected populations who still struggle with losing their livelihoods and way of life.
The dam – which was managed by Samarco, a joint venture between the Brazilian mining company Vale and the Anglo-Australian company BHP – collapsed on 5 November 2015, and caused mining waste to flow nearly 700km (430 miles) down the Rio Doce into the Atlantic Ocean, devastating everything in its path.
The ruins of an abandoned barn, one of many buildings destroyed by mud and sludge after the collapse of the dam in 2015
The torrent of toxic sludge buried villages, killed 19 people and left thousands more homeless. Nearly a decade later, hundreds of thousands of people continue to suffer the effects daily, in the contaminated soil unfit for agriculture, the diseased fish they catch in the polluted river, and the breakdown of their communities and cultural traditions.
No one has yet been held accountable for the socio-environmental disaster. BHP, Vale, Samarco and eight other defendants stand accused of environmental crimes in a Brazilian court case that has been dragging on for seven years. They are due to face a judge for questioning this month.
Separately, about 700,000 people are suing BHP in a UK court, seeking £36bn in reparations in English legal history’s most significant group claim. BHP denies liability.
Clockwise from top left: Gustavo Faustino Rosa, 13, walks next to abandoned fishing canoes on the banks of the Rio Doce, in Espírito Santo; a boy searches for fish in a specially built pond developed as an alternative to fishing; Ana Paula and Elisangela Morais Soares, from the Tupiniquins Indigenous community; a vegetable garden built to cater for people whose land was affected by the contamination of the Rio Doce
Tom Goodhead of Pogust Goodhead, the London-based international law firm representing the group, says he is “optimistic that BHP will do the right thing and seek to resolve the case to avoid the need for a trial”, which is now set for October 2024.
In 2016, BHP, Vale and Samarco set up the Renova Foundation to compensate for loss and damages. To date, BHP says the foundation has spent more than 32bn reais (£5.3bn) on remediation and compensation programmes, with about 50% of that paid as individual compensation directly to people affected.
BHP says that more than 430,000 people have received payments and financial assistance, including traditional communities such as quilombolas and Indigenous people.
Abandoned houses in the municipality of Bento Rodrigues
However, Brazilian prosecutors said earlier this year that the money supposedly spent by the foundation is not properly accounted for. Many people say they have received nothing and are still fighting for recognition and compensation.
This is the case of Thatiele Monic Estevão, who travelled halfway around the world last week to address the board of BHP during the company’s AGM in Adelaide. “You are killing us,” she said, accusing the mining company of environmental racism. BHP strongly rejects the accusations.
Clockwise from top left: People from the quilombola community meet lawyers to discuss the progress of the lawsuit brought by those affected by the Mariana tragedy; Neusa da Conceição Fraga Botelho at home in Minas Gerais; the Quadrilha festival is an opportunity for members of the quilombola community to gather at the community residents’ association; members of the quilombola community
Estevão, 31, is the leader of the Vila Santa Efigênia quilombola association, representing four quilombola communities – rural settlements of descendants of enslaved Africans – located near offshoots of the Rio Doce. “Although mud did not pass over our territories, we live with the impacts of the mud, what we call invisible mud,” she says, explaining how her communities can no longer rely on small-scale agriculture, fishing and artisanal gold panning to make a living. Unemployment and poor mental health are widespread, and they are losing traditional practices.
Aerial view of the Rio Doce crossing the Krenak indigenous territory
Farther downstream, Indigenous peoples for whom the river was sacred have suffered a profound spiritual loss.
“There is no way of measuring how much we lost and how much we continue losing to this day. It’s irreparable,” says Anderson Krenak, 39, a leader of the Krenak Indigenous people.
Wakrewa Krenak, an Indigenous leader, on the Rio Dolce riverbank
“My people feel isolated and abandoned,” says Wakrewa Krenak, 32, a female leader from the same community. “We believed that Watu [the Rio Doce] was a father and a mother for our people. He would give us food and medicinal plants. Everything was the river. After 2015, a part of our history died because we can no longer practise our culture.”
Her two younger children, aged two and six, will never experience the connection with Watu that was an integral part of Krenak culture.
Clockwise from top left: Dona Deja, an elder of the community; Dhombre Krenak sits on a large stock of water bottles; Dhombre is learning to swim in a water tank in his family’s garden; a portrait and spears hang on a wall in the house of Dona Deja, an elder of the Krenak Indigenous community, in Minas Gerais
But in the face of hardship, “the story of the Krenak people has also become one of resilience”, she adds.
Resilience is also on display in Bento Rodrigues, the first village to be buried under the toxic sludge eight years ago. Displaced residents have started moving into “New Bento”, a modern settlement being built by Renova seven miles away. Yet they regularly return to the abandoned village to hold cultural and religious celebrations amid the petrified ruins.
“People are trying to keep the traditions swept away by the mud alive,” says D’Ângelo.
The faithful celebrate the feast of patron saint São Bento
