Bento Rodrigues dam disaster
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The village of Bento Rodrigues after the disaster
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| Date | 5 November 2015 |
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| Location | Minas Gerais state, Brazil |
| Coordinates | 20°12′23.4″S 43°28′01.6″W / 20.206500°S 43.467111°WCoordinates: 20°12′23.4″S 43°28′01.6″W / 20.206500°S 43.467111°W |
| Type | Dam failure |
| Cause | not yet released |
| Participants | |
| Deaths | 17 |
| Non-fatal injuries | 16 |
| Missing | 2 |
| Property damage | two villages affected, around 200 homes destroyed |
The Bento Rodrigues dam disaster occurred on 5 November 2015, when an iron ore tailings dam in Bento Rodrigues, a subdistrict of Mariana, Brazil, suffered a catastrophic failure, causing flooding and at least 17 deaths. At least 16 people have been injured.
About 60 million cubic meters of iron waste flowed into the Doce River. Toxic brown mudflows reached the Atlantic Ocean 17 days later. The total impact and environmental consequences to the river and the beaches near its mouth, or to the wildlife are still unclear. This incident has been described as the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history.
The dam is a property of Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton. Initially it was speculated that the causes for the collapse would be some weaknesses in the dam's structure that were described in a report of 2013 from the Brazilian authorities. BHP Billiton denies this version, and the causes of the incident are still being investigated.
Controlled by Samarco Mineração SA, the Fundão and Santarém dams are part of the Germano mine located in the district of Santa Rita Durão, a municipality of Mariana. The tailings dams were built to accommodate the waste resulting from the extraction of iron ore taken from extensive mines in the region.
In January 2016, the leakage of internal documents from 14 months before the disaster revealed that Samarco had been warned about the possibility of the dam collapses. Joaquim Pimenta de Ávila, who was regarded as one of the foremost tailing dam engineers in Brazil, had been contracted by Samarco between 2008 and 2012 to design and oversee the construction of Fundão. From 2013, he was hired part-time as a consultant to inspect the dam. A technical report of Ávila from September 2014 lists severe structural problems (cracks) on the dam, and measures to mitigate them, the main one being the construction of a buttress.
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