Ten years after the Mariana disaster, residents still seek justice
Mônica Santos, then 30, was a dental assistant living in the Bento Rodrigues district of Mariana, Minas Gerais state. She left home for work at around 6 am on November 5. She had to leave early to get there on time, but she had no idea that she would only see her house again 24 hours later, covered in mud, and that ten years later she would still be fighting for justice.
Even after a decade, the sight of the rubble is still vivid in her memory. “It’s as if it were all happening now,” the community leader told Agência Brasil. Mônica is currently unemployed.
On that day, the Fundão dam, operated by the Samarco company, burst, releasing approximately 40 million cubic meters of mining waste. The disaster killed 19 people and left more than 600 homeless. Other affected communities were Paracatu de Baixo, Paracatu de Cima, Pedras, Águas Claras, and Campinas.
House covered in mud
In Mônica’s case, she remembers receiving a call from a cousin that afternoon, telling her what had happened. Desperate, she picked up her mother from work and tried to make her way home. She spent the afternoon and early morning on the road. The sun was rising on the horizon when she reached higher ground and could see what appeared to be her own house. “That’s when it hit me. I had nothing left,” she recounts.
She currently lives in the resettlement community of Novo Bento Rodrigues, provided by Samarco and located about 13 kilometers from the old neighborhood. “But our house still has a lot of problems. We can’t say it was fully delivered. There are still houses being built and homeless residents who don’t even have a house project for them yet,” she adds.
The community leader says justice must be fought for. “As long as I have the strength, I will fight to ensure that people are properly compensated,” she declares, adding that the houses provided by Samarco are not yet registered in the name of the displaced residents.
Mônica’s main hope is to see her neighbors resettled in a house, all victims compensated, and those involved held accountable. “If punishment had been meted out, the tragedy in Brumadinho [in January 2019, which left 272 dead] would not have occurred.”
“Anti-democratic projects”
In the opinion of Márcio Zonta, one of the national leaders of the Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining, the disaster reflects how mining decisions are disconnected from the population.
“These are anti-democratic projects in which companies do not take organizations or populations into consideration,” he said. He believes that, in general, there is no minimum level of compensation for people’s suffering and that there is no national mining project for Brazil.
Brazil has 916 dams – 74 of which are at high risk of collapse and 91 are on alert. The activist believes that disasters like this could happen again, particularly in Minas Gerais, where there are 31 dams. “This is where [mining giant] Vale started what it calls the Southern Mining System,” he noted.
“The Northern System is in the Amazon, and the Southern System begins in Itabira,” he went on to say. Zonta considers that the episodes in Mariana and Brumadinho also represent the collapse of Vale’s Southern Mining System.
Caminhos da Reportagem
This week, an episode of TV Brasil’s Caminhos da Reportagem entitled Lágrimas de ferro (“Tears of Iron”), reveals, in a 53-minute broadcast, the residents’ struggle for justice.
In it, Minas Gerais Prosecutor Guilherme de Sá Meneguin points out, for example, that the dam collapse affected 3 million people in Minas Gerais and the neighboring Espírito Santo.
“It affected the environment, killed people, destroyed economies. I’d say that, more than an environmental crime, it was a serious violation of human rights, which has been perpetuated over time,” he declared.
Also speaking to Caminhos da Reportagem, the executive superintendent of Brazil’s National Mining Agency, Júlio César Rodrigues, believes the regulation of mining dams has advanced more than that of waste piles.
“The national dam safety policy has already been changed. We now have a very robust policy for dams. This is not yet the case for waste piles,” he argued.
Compensation
The company told Agência Brasil that, since 2015, BRL 68.4 billion has been allocated to remediation and compensation actions. This amount includes BRL 32.1 billion paid in 735 thousand individual compensation agreements.
The company argues that these resources “have transformed the economic reality of the basin, stimulating trade, strengthening production chains, and generating jobs.”
Farmer Francisco de Paula Felipe hopes everything will improve in his new home. “Two months ago, I was able to move into my house here in the new settlement. We received part of the compensation at the beginning. Part of it is still pending in court. It hasn’t been easy for us to live through these ten years,” he says.
He hopes to be healthy enough to face life, “to finish raising my two daughters, see them study and get their lives on track.”
