Emanuele Vitoria was at home with her father and brother when a torrent of toxic mud tore through the quiet village of Bento Rodrigues in the mountains of south-east Brazil nine years ago.
The body of the five-year-old was found five days after Brazil’s worst environmental disaster. It was triggered by the collapse of a tailings, or waste product, dam at an iron ore mine owned by Samarco, a company co-owned by Brazilian and Australian mining giants Vale and BHP respectively.
Emanuele was one of 19 people who died in the 5 November 2015 mudslide.
“We felt as if our whole world had collapsed,” her mother Rayane Fernandes said.
Rayane Fernandes shows photos of her five-year-old daughter Emanuele who died in the 2015 Mariana Dam disaster. Source: Getty / Douglas Magno
The collapse of the dam unleashed a torrent of over 40 million cubic metres of highly toxic mining waste sludge, enough to fill 12,000 Olympic swimming pools.
The ochre-coloured muck from the dam in the town of Mariana flooded a dozen downstream villages in Minas Gerais state.
In all, over 30 towns and villages were affected, with Bento Rodrigues being one of the hardest hit.
The village of Bento Rodrigues was buried in mud after a dam owned by Vale and BHP burst in 2015. Source: AP / AP
A trial to determine whether BHP is liable for one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters opened on Monday in London.
“It’s nearly nine years on now and no one has been held accountable,” Tom Goodhead, of law firm Pogust Goodhead which brought the case, told AFP outside the court.
“Whilst this isn’t a criminal trial, it acts as a way of holding the company liable and accountable,” added Goodhead, who was joined by relatives of victims.
At the time of the disaster, BHP had global headquarters in the UK as well as in Australia. Source: EPA / Andy Rain
Over 620,000 plaintiffs, including dozens of local authorities, Indigenous communities and businesses, are seeking US$47 ($70 billion) billion in damages from BHP.
BHP says more than 200,000 of the plaintiffs have already been compensated.
It says its Renova Foundation, which is in charge of compensation and rehabilitation programs in Brazil, has paid out over US$7.8 billion ($11.6 billion) in emergency financial aid.
Rayane Fernandes, 30, was rehoused in Cachoeira do Brumado, 45km from Bento Rodrigues, after the disaster.
She received compensation for the death of her daughter but says it was only a part of what she believes she is owed.
“I will continue to seek justice,” she said, calling the London trial her last hope.
Town abandoned after dam disaster
The mud engulfed the homes of over 600 people, including the ancestral home of Mauro Marcos da Silva, a 55-year-old car mechanic.
“I was literally born here,” he told AFP, pointing to one of the walls of the house still standing in Bento Rodrigues, which is choked in weeds.
“Here are my roots and my ancestors,” he said.
“That sense of belonging, the friendships, family, money cannot buy that and it cannot be rebuilt.”
Mauro Marcos da Silva stands in front of the remains of his father’s house in Bento Rodrigues. It was destroyed by floods following the Mariana Dam collapse. Source: Getty / Douglas Magno
Bento Rodrigues was declared unfit for human habitation after the disaster and abandoned.
Nearly a decade later, a new village built to rehouse the victims, Novo Bento Rodrigues, is still under construction.
Ecosystem destroyed
The mud from Mariana coursed some 670km along the Doce River to the Atlantic Ocean, destroying the surrounding ecosystem.
At least 6,000 families that lived off fishing found themselves without a livelihood.
A team of scientists recently reported that the mouth of the river and parts of the coastline of Espirito Santo and Bahia states, which neighbour Minas Gerais, were still contaminated with metals from the spill.
The report published by the Brazilian government in September said the area’s populations of fish, birds, turtles, porpoises and whales had all been affected.
BHP insists that the quality of the river water has returned to pre-disaster levels.
