(21 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bento Rodrigues, Brazil – 19 October 2024
1. Various of debris at a church that was awash in mud after a mining waste dam burst in 2015
2. Wreckage of a car hit by mud in 2015 and now partially covered by vegetation
3. Various of victim of the dam burst, Mônica dos Santos, showing debris of her house that was hit by mud after dam burst in 2015
4. Mônica dos Santos showing where the rooms of her house were located ++UPSOUND++ “There was my mother’s room, here where I am was my room, and here was another room, in front there was the living room."
5. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Mônica dos Santos, Victim of mining dam burst:
“The first image I saw (of the town of) Bento (Rodrigues) was that there was no longer my house, there was no longer my grandmother’s house, there was no longer a church. All I could see was mud, floating roofs, floating cars, the bus that took the kids to school floating. But floating in the middle of that mud, you couldn’t see properly.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Bento Rodrigues, Brazil – 6 November 2015
6. Various aerials of town of Bento Rodrigues covered in mud
7. Car stuck in mud
8. Dog in roof of a house covered in mud
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bento Rodrigues, Brazil – 19 October 2024
9. Victim of the dam burst Cristiano Sales walking past remnants of house he used to live in before dam burst
10. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Cristiano Sales, victim of mining dam burst:
“Until now, the dam collapse has left its after effects on us. Many people say, ‘oh, but you’re fine!’ No, we’re not fine. I’ve already been resettled, I live with my father, but our lives are still very shaken.”
11. Remnants of a house
STORYLINE:
Victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster took their case for compensation to a UK court Monday, almost nine years after tons of toxic mining waste poured into a major waterway, killing 19 people and devastating local communities.
The class action lawsuit at the High Court in London seeks an estimated 36 billion pounds ($47 billion) in damages from the global mining giant BHP. That would make it the largest environmental payout ever, according to Pogust Goodhead, the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
BHP owns 50% of Samarco, the Brazilian company that operates the iron ore mine where a tailings dam ruptured on Nov. 5, 2015, releasing enough mine waste to fill 13,000 Olympic-size swimming pools into the Doce River in southeastern Brazil. The case was filed in Britain because one of BHP’s two main legal entities was based in London at the time.
BHP attorney Shaheed Fatima said in written submissions the claim has “no basis," adding that BHP did not own or operate the dam and “had limited knowledge of the dam and no knowledge that its stability was compromised.”
The river, which the Krenak Indigenous people revere as a deity, was polluted so badly that it has yet to recover. The disaster killed 14 tons of freshwater fish and damaged 660 kilometers (410 miles) of the Doce River, according to a study by the University of Ulster.
When the dam known as Fundao broke, sludge washed over Bento Rodrigues, once a bustling village in Minas Gerais state. Now it resembles a ghost town.
A few white tiles are the only remnants of the house where Mônica dos Santos, 39, lived with her parents near the Catholic church that also was destroyed. She has become one of the principal activists seeking full reparations.
Some survivors turned to alcohol, others to drugs. Personal relations were strained, sometimes to breaking point.
AP Video by Eleonore Hughes
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