Fears and repairs preceded January collapse in which over 142 people died and 194 are still missing, near Brumadinho in Minas Gerais state

'That's going to burst': Brazilian dam workers say they warned of disaster

'That's going to burst': Brazilian dam workers say they warned of disaster

The Brazilian mining dam which collapsed in January, killing hundreds of people, suffered a leak last year that compromised its safety, according to employees who allege the mine’s operators did not inform the workforce or relocate a canteen and administration building that were destroyed in the disaster.

One hundred and forty-two people died and 194 are still missing after the dam near Brumadinho in Minas Gerais state collapsed on 25 January.

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On the day of the disaster, Vale – the Brazilian company which owns the mine – said the dam was regularly checked, most recently on 22 January, and had received “declarations of condition of stability” from TÜV SÜD, a German inspection company. Four days after the disaster, police arrested three Vale employees and two engineers from TÜV SÜD, but on Tuesday a high court ordered their release.

“There was no leak in the dam,” a Vale spokeswoman said in an email.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A press conference in Brumadinho. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi/The Guardian

But three mine workers told the Guardian that around July last year, repairs were carried out after the dam leaked water near its base. Another man said his brother – who worked at the mine and is still missing – was so worried about the leak he planned to leave his job.

Around 600 people were gathered at the mine’s canteen and administrative area when the dam failed, releasing 11.7m cubic meters of sludgy mining waste known as tailings.

CCTV videos show the enormous, grass-covered structure collapsing into a deluge of mud which flattened the mining complex and tore across the countryside.

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Fernando Coelho, 35, lost his father Olavo Coelho, 63, in the disaster. The two men lived together, and both worked at the mine.

Fernando said that around July last year, his father was called in to work at around 10pm one night after a leak was spotted on the lower surface of the dam.

Fernando Coelho, who was working at a nearby ore treatment unit, was asked to find sand and gravel for the repair. He then followed the night’s events on his radio.

“The supervisor found the mud leaking,” he said. “They called for my father, because he had worked his whole life with dams and mines.”

By 4pm the following day, workers had been brought in to fix it and the area had been sealed off. “They did the repair and said there was no problem,” he said.

Coelho broke into tears as he remembered his father warning him to steer clear of the dam. “That’s going to burst at any time,” he recalled him saying.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fernando Coelho. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi/The Guardian

Coelho has related the same events to state prosecutors. A spokesman for prosecutors said they would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Dam safety experts said that such a leak would mean the dam was not safe.

“A leak like that … would inherently make the dam more unstable,” said David Chambers, an expert on tailings dam failures who co-founded the Center for Science in Public Participation. “Any kind of leak through the face of the dam is significant. It shouldn’t do that if it was working properly.”

The Brumadinho dam was built in 1976 using the “upstream” method, in which tailings themselves are used to build the dam. (A more expensive method uses rock and earth to contain the waste.)

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The same method was used to build the Fundão dam in the same state, which failed in November 2015, killing 19 people and causing an environmental catastrophe.

Fundão was operated by Samarco – a joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton – and though the companies have spent billions of dollars on clean-up, Samarco has only paid a fraction of the fines levied. An independent report blamed the disaster on “liquefaction” a phenomenon in which solids act like liquids.

In September, a TÜV SÜD report concluded that the Brumadinho dam was stable. But it highlighted drainage problems and recommended installing new water pressure monitors. According to Vale, workers were fitting the new monitors on the day the dam burst – over four months later.

José de Gouveia, 53, narrowly survived the disaster because he was working high above the tailings tank in an ore treatment unit. He hung on as it began to fall apart while the sea of mud passed beneath, and eventually crawled out across broken fittings.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest José de Gouveia. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi/The Guardian

“I saw a group of people who ran – but they had no chance, they were overtaken by the mud,” he said. “Workmates beside me slipped and fell and died there.”

Gouveia also saw men working on a leak at the foot of the dam around last July.

“They were containing a little leak soon after the rainy season. It was seeping water in several places at the bottom,” he said.

Luis Castro, 60, who works for Reframax, a subcontracted company, said he saw crews working on the dam after workmates talked about a leak.

“We heard there had been a little water leak, but we didn’t know what the risk could be,” he said.

Castro also managed to escape from the ore treatment unit when the dam failed. “I thought about jumping, I looked down and I saw people shouting: ‘I’m going to die,’” he said. He paused, overcome with emotion. “It hurts. It hurts really bad,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luis Castro and his wife, Ivaneth Fatima Amorim. Photograph: Nicolo Lanfranchi/The Guardian

Survivors described how quickly the mud descended. “There was a loud boom and then brown smoke in the sky, and the earth shaking,” said Messias Leite, 30, who fled for higher ground. “It was a horrible scene,” he said.

In 2018, João Xavier, a state assembly representative for Minas Gerais, proposed a state law that would have prohibited 90% of the state’s “upstream” dams and created more rigorous regulations for the rest. The bill was defeated, Xavier said, by the powerful mining lobby.

“They argued this would harm mining in the state but the opposite is true: what harms mining is living with environmental tragedies,” Xavier said.

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Among the missing is Ícaro Alves, 33, an electrician also working for Reframax. His brother Washington Alves, 36, a mechanic, said Ícaro was worried after hearing of a leak.

“He said he heard someone say it was leaking water through a crack,” said Washington Alves. “He was scared – so much that he was only going to stay another two or three months.”

Alves left two young children. He called his brother ten minutes before the dam collapsed and said he wanted a traditional Brazilian barbeque the next day. “It was his day off,” said Washington Alves. “But he never arrived.”

Additional reporting Nicoló Lanfranchi in Brumadinho