Mariana tragedy victims suffer setback in UK courts

As The Brazilian Report showed last week, five years have passed since the Fundão dam collapsed in the south-eastern Brazilian town of Mariana, causing 19 deaths and untold environmental damage. Yet, only two-thirds of families who qualify for compensation have received any redress as of August 2020.

These neglected households were dealt another disappointment on Monday, when the High Court of Manchester, in England, dropped a GBP 5 billion (USD 6.6 billion) lawsuit against Anglo-Australian mining multinational BHP Billiton, one of the controllers of the Fundão tailings dam.

Representing over 200,000 people and institutions — including 22 municipal governments, 600 companies, the Catholic Church, and indigenous people — the lawsuit was filed in July by law firm PGMBM, made up of British, Brazilian, and American attorneys. They requested GBP 5 billion from BHP Billiton as compensation for the Mariana disaster.

The tragedy of Mariana

The Fundão dam was used to store iron ore tailings, the toxic residue from the mining operations of Samarco Mineração S/A, co-owned by a Brazilian subsidiary of BHP and domestic mining giant Vale. The legal representatives of the Mariana tragedy’s victims say that BHP is ultimately responsible for the dam collapse, as, by way of Samarco,...