"The Brumadinho tailings dam catastrophe is an unwelcome reminder of the industry’s atrocious safety record", according to The FT’s Investors Chronicle article Vale disaster sends shockwaves beyond Brazil. We’ve already posted about this disaster here and here. Now, following pressure from prosecutors, Vale's CEO and other executives have resigned. As the BBC reports in the saddening article Looking for bodies, looking for answers:
A month on from the collapse, 171 people have been confirmed dead, but the recovery operation continues to search for the bodies of another 141 people - all reported missing by their families.
It’s a race against time. Very soon the bodies will begin to decompose fully, and the rescue dogs will be less effective.
As the IC points out:
History, Karl Marx once wrote, repeats itself "first as tragedy, the second time as farce". Perusing the global mining industry’s expressions of horror at last month’s Brumadinho tailings dam collapse, it is hard not to recall the line. Describing a disaster likely to have killed more than 300 people as “tragic” might carry more weight had the incident not arrived just 38 months after another of Vale’s Brazilian iron ore operations failed, again at huge human and environmental cost.
…. efforts to quantify tailings dam failures around the world appear to suggest that the deadliness, magnitude and even frequency of such disasters are getting worse
The magazine also points to worldminetailingsfailures.org, which supports research in tailing dam failures and has compiled data on such disasters over the last hundred years:
Our banner is an ever-looping image of the actual failure by static liquefaction of Vale’s Dam I at the [Brumadinho] Córrego do Feijão mine.... which ranks as the 6th worst in recorded history, based on data available as of February 6, 2019.
The data suggests a worsening trend. In fact:
Without major changes to law and regulation, and to industry practices, and without new technology that substantially reduces risk and increases loss control, our current prediction is for 19 Very Serious Failures between 2018 and 2027.
However, deaths from tailing dam collapses is just the tip of the iceberg of mining’s human cost. The BBC article The dangers of mining around the world reports:
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), while mining employs around 1% of the global labour force, it generates 8% of fatal accidents.
Although there are no accurate figures, estimates suggest [mining] accidents kill about 12,000 people a year.
Mining unions say many disasters go unreported:
It is a very dark industry
Brazil's Vale to pay $3,200 to residents to 'compensate' for dam burst that killed 300.— Doing Things Differently (@dtdchange) February 22, 2019
Half that for every teenager and 25% for every child.
Pitiful, in many senses of the word.https://t.co/0BViQGdG9K#Brumadinho #environmentaljustice
160 people have not yet been found... pic.twitter.com/PpxegAzwhP
